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141015L - QUALITY OF LIFE

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Lecture for medical students in the Medicine block King Fahad Medical City Riyadh on October 15, 2014

DEFINITION OF QUALITY OF LIFE

·         Human life must have some quality. It is not enough to eat and breathe or maintain the vegetative functions only. A human cannot live like a plant or an animal.
·         The quality of life can be defined in physical, mental, or spiritual dimensions.
·         The physical criteria are: absence of disease, comfortable environment, and basic necessities.
·         The mental criteria are: calmness, absence of neurosis and anxiety, and purposive life.
·         The spiritual criteria are mainly correct relation with the creator.

QUALITY OF LIFE and BIOTECHNOLOGY 1

·         Issues of quality of life have been raised in the recent past because of advances in terminal disease care and the stresses of technological development. Many patients who used to die of cancer and other debilitating diseases can now survive.
·         Both the disease and its treatment cause considerable changes to their lifestyle. The life under these debilitating conditions is of low quality. Both the original disease and the treatment contribute to this low quality; the treatment in some cases has a more contribution.

QUALITY OF LIFE and BIOTECHNOLOGY 2

·         Specialized methods have been developed to be able to assess the quality of this life empirically. These indices take into considerations performance status on physical tasks in addition to social or psychological parameters.
·         Industrial society has given rise to environmental pollution and mental stress that affect the quality of life. Decision-making on allocation of health care resources depends on quality of life assessment.

TRADITIONAL MEASURES OF QUALITY OF LIFE

·         Traditional measures of the quality of life use anatomical, chemical, and physiological indices. They indicate general goals and are not good measures of actual quality of life. Their interpretation is often subjective.
·         In cancer patients physical, psychosocial and general assessments are made with reference to activities of daily living (ADL).
·         Among traditional indices used are: survival duration, impairments (signs, self-reported disease, physiological measurements, tissue alterations, and diagnosis), and functional status (physical, psychological, and social).

NEW MEASURES OF QUALITY OF LIFE 1

·         The new QOL indices are predictors of the goals. They are based on instruments that are validated and whose reliability is tested empirically. Some are general whereas others are specific. Assessment of QOL may be by indices or by profiles; indices being more popular.
·         The indices are standardized but it must be remembered that each individual is unique. 

NEW MEASURES OF QUALITY OF LIFE 2

The indices used in clinical trials and clinical practice include.
·         McMaster Health Index Questionnaire: physical, social, and emotional parameters
·         Index of Health-related Quality of Life: physical, psychological, and social adjustment
·         Euroqol Quality Life Index: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, anxiety/depression parameters
·         World Health Organization Health-related Quality of Life (WHOQOL) is being developed.

NEW MEASURES OF QUALITY OF LIFE 3

The commonest profiles of QOL used in clinical practice are:
·         Quality of Well-being Index: combines morbidity and mortality parameters
·         Sickness Impact Profile: physical and psychological dimensions
·         Nottingham Health Profile: perceived health status with no direct questions on health

TOWARD AN ISLAMIC QOL INDEX

·         The definition and use of QOL indices reflects the cultural and philosophical background as well as the worldview of the Judeo-Christian and Greco-roman traditions.
·         Islam being a separate civilization has its own world view and this affects the formulation of QOL indices.
·         Unfortunately Muslims have not yet worked on defining QOL from the Islamic context.

VALUE OF LIFE

·         Life as a gift

·         The right to life
·         Sanctity of life
·         Material worth of life
·         Moral worth of life

LIFE AS A GIFT 1

·         Human life is a gift from Allah, ni’imat al hayat[1]. Humans must be grateful to Allah for the gift of life by worshipping Him, ibadat[2]
·         The gift of life can be appreciated from several vantage points: statistical probability, good health, sustenance, and social relations.
·         The statistical probability of being alive is low. Those who have life are a select few. A fertilized ovum that eventually grows into a human being is a very small statistical probability. One male ejaculate has millions of sperms and only one of them succeeds in fertilizing the female ovum. In many cases fertilized ova do not grow into fetuses but are aborted early.

LIFE AS A GIFT 2

·         The prophet said that good health, sihhat, and well-being, ‘aafiyat, are two bounties that many people do not enjoy[3]. Few people are healthy in all their organs and at all times.
·         Allah gives humans the gift of life and also gives them sustenance, rizq, is a manifestation of the continuation of rububiyat.
·         Social aspects of life as a gift can be visualized in the form of offspring, relatives and spouses. Children are a bounty to parents, ni'mat al dhurtiyat[4]. Relatives in the extended family are a source of psychological support. Spouses give both psychological and physical comfort[5].

THE RIGHT TO LIFE

·         Each human has an inalienable right to life from Allah, haqq al hayat. This life cannot be taken away or impaired by any human being except in cases of judicial execution after due process of the law.
·         The laws of marriage ensure that every child is born in a family in order to get physical protection.
·         Nafaqat is compulsory for a pregnant and nursing woman even if divorced to ensure proper nutrition for the fetus and later infant.
·         Breast-feeding is obligatory for the first 2 years of life. Feticide, infanticide, and homicide are prohibited to protect life.

SANCTITY OF LIFE

·         Life is sacred. The sanctity of life, hurmat al nafs is guaranteed by the Qur’an[6]. The life of each single individual whatever be his or her age, social status or state of health is important and is as equally important as the life of any other human[7].
·         Protection of life, ‘ismat al hayat/hifdh al nafs,  is the second most important purpose of the shariat coming second only to the protection of the diin. It has priority over any other mundane consideration.
·         Because of its importance some jurists have put it in the first position above hifdh al diin because diin cannot survive in the absence of life.

MATERIAL WORTH OF LIFE

·         No material value can be put on human life.
·         Legal compensation for bodily damage or homicide is replacement of lost earnings and not paying for the value of life.
·         The compensation is a legal provision to provide sustenance to surviving relatives in case of death. It also provides sustenance to the person whose organ was severed and therefore cannot work to support himself.

MORAL WORTH OF LIFE

·         Every life is as important as any other life.
·         Destroying the life of one person is equivalent to destroying the life of all humans[8].


REFERENCES

[1] (16:78, 67:23)
[2] (2:21-22)
[3] (Bukhari K81 B1, Tirmidhi K24 B1, Ibn Majah K37 B15, Darimi K20 B2)
[4] (3;38, 6:84, 14:39, 19:5-7, 19:19, 21:72, 21:90, 25:74, 29:27, 38:30, 42:49)
[5] (7:189, 30:21)
[6] (2:84-85, 4:29, 5:32, 6:151, 17:33, 18:74, 25:68)
[7] (5:32)
[8] (5:32)