News from “Quality of Life Research”

Jan R. Boehnke, PhD, Brittany Lapin, PhD MPH, and Jessica Roydhouse, PhD
Quality of Life Research Co-Editors-in-Chief

The Co-Editors in Chief of Quality of Life Research (QLR) would like to thank ISOQOL and its members for their support in 2023. We received 1,903 submissions and accepted 247 articles. The journal’s editorial board managed high workloads and helped us identify relevant content for the community of (health-related) quality of life researchers. Importantly, 727 unique reviewers contributed at least one review, supporting the high quality of our content.

We would also like to highlight the excellent content of the journal, identified by several indicators. First, QLR’s article of the year award was presented at the annual conference in Cologne. This is based on nomination from the Associate Editors, followed by their vote on the quality and originality of the nominated papers:

• WINNER: L.D. Bjørndal, R.B. Nes, N. Czajkowski, E. Røysamb. The structure of well-being: a single underlying factor with genetic and environmental influences. Qual Life Res 32, 2805-2816.
• Second place: B.J. Mulhern, T. Pan, R. Norman, A. Tran-Duy, J. Hanmer, R. Viney, N.J. Devlin. Understanding the measurement relationship between EQ-5D-5L, PROMIS-29 and PROPr. Qual Life Res 32, 3147-3160.
• Third place: B. Terluin, J.E. Koopman, L. Hoogendam, P. Griffiths, C.B. Terwee, J.B. Bjorner. Estimating meaningful thresholds for multi-item questionnaires using item response theory. Qual Life Res 32, 1819-1830.

Second, the downloads per year continue to increase, with 1,440,275 downloads in 2023. The three most downloaded papers in 2023 published in 2021-2023 were:

• Y.S. Feng, T. Kohlmann, M.F. Janssen, I. Buchholz. Psychometric properties of the EQ-5D-5L: a systematic review of the literature. Qual Life Res 30, 647–673 (2021).
• 28th Annual Conference of the International Society for Quality of Life Research. Qual Life Res 30 (Suppl 1), 1–177 (2021).
• F.C.W. van Krugten, J.J.V. Busschbach, M.M. Versteegh, L. Hakkaart-van Roijen, W.B.F. Brouwer. The Mental Health Quality of Life Questionnaire (MHQoL): development and first psychometric evaluation of a new measure to assess quality of life in people with mental health problems. Qual Life Res 31, 633–643 (2022).

​

The most downloaded papers from the entire QLR catalogue based on article requests were:

• K. Haraldstad, A. Wahl, R. Andenæs, et al, the LIVSFORSK network. A systematic review of quality of life research in medicine and health sciences. Qual Life Res 28, 2641–2650 (2019).
• M. Herdman, C. Gudex, A. Lloyd, M.F. Janssen, P. Kind, D. Parkin, G. Bonsel, X. Badia. Development and preliminary testing of the new five-level version of EQ-5D (EQ-5D-5L). Qual Life Res 20, 1727–1736 (2011).
• C.A.C. Prinsen, L.B. Mokkink, L.M. Bouter, J. Alonso, D.L. Patrick, H.C.W. de Vet, C.B. Terwee. COSMIN guideline for systematic reviews of patient-reported outcome measures. Qual Life Res 27, 1147–1157 (2018).

The use of research and articles goes beyond academic citations or downloads of the papers. Articles are used in news outlets, social media, and a wide range of other communication channels. The Altmetric score is one way of summarising the use of research published in QLR across these outlets. Below are the three publications with the highest Altmetric score in 2023 (mentions on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Blogs, news outlets, Faculty of 1000 reviews):

• J. McEvoy, S.K. Gandhi, A.A. Rizio, S. Maher, M. Kosinski, J.B. Bjorner. Effect of tardive dyskinesia on quality of life in patients with bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and schizophrenia. Qual Life Res 28, 3303–3312 (2019).
• T.A. Ainsworth, J.H. Spiegel. Quality of life of individuals with and without facial feminization surgery or gender reassignment surgery. Qual Life Res 19, 1019–1024 (2010).
• B. Bunzel, B. Schmidl-Mohl, A. Grundböck, G. Wollenek. Does changing the heart mean changing personality? A retrospective inquiry on 47 heart transplant patients. Qual Life Res 1, 251-256 (1992).

Finally, the 2023 impact factor (IF) is 3.3 (please note that the reporting of the impact factor has changed from 2022 onward to only one decimal), compared to 3.5 in 2022. While QLR had a slight decline in IF, it is aligned with most journals which experienced a decline due to rebalancing of publications after the influx of manuscripts during COVID years, and QLR remains in the top quartile for all categories. The 5-year IF for the journal is 4.4, same as 2022.

Overall, it was another successful year for Quality of Life Research! In large part, due to all your wonderful contributions as authors, reviewers, and readers.

Please reach out to us if you have ideas and/or are interested in leading an article collection on specific topics relevant to health-related quality of life.

This newsletter editorial represents the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ISOQOL. 

How to Submit a Newsletter Editorial
Do you have something to share about health related quality of life and patient-centered outcomes? We want to hear from you!
Learn More