Begrijpen patiënten met en zonder een verstandelijke beperking de vragen van de Forensic inpatient Quality of Life questionnaire - Short version?

From a strength-based approach of forensic psychiatry, attention to quality of life is increased. Therefore, an adequate tool to measure the subjective component of quality of life is crucial. The Forensic inpatient Quality of Life questionnaire – Short Version (FQL- SV) is considered a valid tool. However, experiences in Flemish forensic psychiatry raise questions on the utility of the questionnaire in clinical practice. The concerns raised were the specific Dutch terminology and the possible presence of cognitive fallacies. After consulting the developers of the FQL- SV who share our concerns, a research project was started with the following aim: gaining insight into the understanding of the FQL- SV by Flemish forensic psychiatric patients. The first step within this project is gaining insight into which questions were difficult to understand. Since there was expected that the understanding would be more limited for patients with an intellectual disability, the research differentiated between persons with and without an intellectual disability. Cognitive interviews were carried out with ten patients with and with eight patients without an intellectual disability. These interviews focused on the experienced difficulty and understanding of each question. Additionally, the patients were asked for suggestions to reformulate the questions. Based on the analysis of the cognitive interviews, the questions could be differentiated in correctly, not and differently understood. The interpretation of the questions clearly differed between participants with and without an intellectual disability. Additionally, the typical Dutch terminology also resulted in difficult understanding of questions. These findings emphasize the importance of the next step in our research project: developing a manual of the FQL-SV that pays attention to different levels of understanding and to explaining typical Dutch terminology