Quality of Life in Mental Disorders

From our regular book review column.

There is a good reason to read a well-written book on quality of life in psychiatric disorders—improving quality of life is the essence of why we practice and is the symbolic and measurable representation of the nonphysiologic aspects of disease. Quality of life can be divided into the study of subjective assessments of well-being or satisfaction, the evaluation of the patient’s functional status, and lastly, the exploration of contextual factors, such as environmental living conditions.