Quality of Life and the International Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities: Consensus Indicators for Assessment

Abstract

Background: The quality of life construct provides an ideal conceptual framework for translating such abstract concepts as self-determination, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. Through consultation with expert raters, we sought to develop and validate a bank of indicators and items, based on the quality of life conceptual framework, to be used as a means of evaluating and implementing the Articles of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Method: Thirty-two experts in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities participated, rating the suitability, importance, and clarity of a bank of 296 items, as well as the relevance of controlling for 70 sociodemographic variables.

Results: After qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data, the final selection comprised 60 sociodemographic variables and 153 items that scored highly on all criteria and produced an excellent level of agreement between the experts.

Conclusions: This bank of items and set of sociodemographic variables constitute the pilot version of a CRPD assessment and monitoring instrument with sufficient evidence of content validity, which may be useful in developing evidence-based practices and in detecting rights violations.