The use of scales to evaluate quality of life is common practice in clinical research, particularly in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR). Among existing scales, the EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D) or Medical Outcome Study Short Form (MOS SF-12 or MOS SF-36) are often used, either to characterise a group of persons, or to evaluate their quality of life. Our aim is to highlight certain limitations in the scope of application of knowledge provided by these tools for PMR, among others.

The analysis of the scales was carried out in two stages. Firstly, a sociologist has reviewed the diversity of the sociocultural aspects present in the scales, to notice the missing aspects, which appear significant according to several sociological studies. Secondly, 32 interviews with patients presenting after-effects of a stroke were carried out to confirm and develop these reports.

The problems which will be mentioned concern different aspects of the scales; the items and domains (lack of questions on autonomy and self-image), the list of possible responses (total or episodic lack of the response “I don’t know”) and the system of evaluation of quality of life (lack of a personal point of view on the impact on quality of life, and thus on possible improvements induced by treatment, whatever its nature). These faults and limitations are not confined to these four generalist scales, they can be found in other scales.

Our analysis invites future clinicians or researchers to improve existing tools and to develop new ones in order to cover a larger repertoire of important dimensions relating to the existence of persons. With this aim in mind, we will present a new tool for PMR, which takes into account the problems outlined.