World Health Organisation Quality of Life assessment
– the WHOQOL-100 – is a cross-culturally
valid assessment of well-being. Assessment is
operationalized through 100 items representing 25
facets organised in six domains [6, 7]. The tool was
developed through a collaboration of 15 sites
around the world working in their own national
language. Centres simultaneously used common
protocols that were agreed through international
consensus at each stage of development process.
The WHOQOL collaboration pooled information
throughout the project and this procedure not only
permits a high level of semantic and conceptual
equivalence to be achieved between language versions
but also creates a ‘fast track’ to the rapid
establishment of multi-lingual instruments [7].
This new procedure whereby centres work simultaneously
on the same stage of instrument development,
pooling their ideas and results centrally
(through WHO Geneva) and communicating with
each other to achieve equivalence has been described
as a ‘spoke-wheel’ methodology, through
analogy with the spokes and hub of a bicycle wheel