JE Mezzich, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York; NL Cohen, NYC Depts. of Health and Mental Health; MA Ruiperez, Univeristy of Castellon, Spain; J Liu, Mt Sinai Services, Elmhurst Hospital, New York; G Yoon, Mt. Sinai Services, Elmhurst Hospital, New York

Objectives: The New York Quality of Life Index, Spanish Version, is a conciseinstrument for comprehensive,culture informed, and self-rated assessment of quality of life. The objective of this study was to appraise its applicability, reliability, and discriminant validity in a sample of Latino individuals in New York City.

Methods: The sample used involved 60 Latino psychiatric patients (20 outpatient, 20 impatient and 20 partial hospitalization) and 20 Latino actively working health professionals. Applicability was assessed in terms of time for completion and ease of use (4-point scale). Reliability was appraised in regard to test-retest stability, 3-7 days apart. Discriminant validity involved the capacity of the instrument to distinguish between two samples with presumed different levels of quality of life.

Results: The mean time of completion was 3.6 minutes among patients and 2.4 minutes among health professionals; 72 percent of the patients and 100 percent of the professionals judged the instrument as very easy or somewhat easy to use. The test-retest reliability correlation coefficient attained by the instrument was 0.89 (highly significantly over zero). The overall average score of the instrument in patients was 6.63 and in professionals it was 8.35, a highly significant difference.

Conclusions: The New York Quality of Life Index, Spanish Version, is an easy to use and highly efficient instrument, despite its comprehensiveness (covering ten recognized dimensions of quality of life). It is also quite reliable (test-retest), despite the flexibility it allows for culture-informed rating. The differentiation it allowed between two samples with different levels of quality of life documents its discriminant validity.

Impact: The New York Quality of Life Index, Spanish Version,is likely to be helpful for the assessment of quality of life in Latino populations, both as part of comprehensive health assessment and as an outcome measure. Its brevity and cultural sensitivity shall facilitate its use in a diversity of clinical and epidemiological settings. Cmparability in assessments can be obtained through the other language-versions of this instrument.