There are online, excel and manual ways to score the FertiQoL.
Please scroll down for more information.
FertiQoL consists of 36 items that yield six subscales and three total scores.
The Core FertiQoL is the fertility quality of life across the Emotional, Mind-Body, Relational and Social subscales. The Emotional subscale score shows the impact of negative emotions (e.g., jealousy & resentment, sadness, depression) on quality of life. The Mind-Body subscale score shows the impact of fertility problems on physical health (e.g., fatigue, pain), cognitions (e.g., concentration) and behaviour (e.g., disrupted daily activities, delayed life plans). The Relational subscale score shows the impact of fertility problems on the marriage or partnership (e.g., sexuality, communication, commitment). The Social subscale score shows the extent to which social interactions have been affected by fertility problems (e.g., social inclusion, expectations, stigma, support).
The Treatment FertiQoL is the quality of life across the Treatment Environment and Treatment Tolerability. The Treatment Environment subscale score shows the extent to which the accessibility and quality of treatment impacts quality of life. The Treatment Tolerability subscale score shows the extent to which fertility medical services impact on daily life.
The Total FertiQoL score is the quality of life for the Core and Treatment FertiQoL combined.
Two additional items (marked A and B on the FertiQoL questionnaire) capture an overall evaluation of physical health and satisfaction with quality of life. These are used for background information but are not used in the FertiQoL total or subscale scores.
Boivin, J, Takefman, J, Braverman, A. (2011) Development and preliminary validation of the fertility quality of life (FertiQoL) tool. Human Reproduction, 26(8), 2084–2091. [pdf]
The 36 FertiQoL items are rated according to 5 types of response scales.
The response scales are:
- Very poor (0), poor (1), neither poor nor good (2), very good (4)
- Very dissatisfied (0), dissatisfied (1), neither satisfied nor dissatisfied (2), satisfied (3), very satisfied (4)
- Always (0), very often (1), quite often (2), Seldom (3), never (4)
- An extreme amount (0), very much (1), a moderate amount (2), a little (3), not at all (4)
- Completely (0), a great deal (1), moderately (2), not much (3), not at all (4)
Scores on the response scales are reversed, summed and scaled to range from 0 to 100. Higher scores on the subscales and total scores indicate better quality of life.
To score the FertiQol online or using excel please click on one of the following links:
Online scoring
Researcher’s Excel scoring
Clinician’s Excel scoring
To score FertiQoL manually use the following instructions:
Note: Item number refers to item number on the FertiQoL questionnaire. Items marked ‘Q’ are Core FertiQoL items and those marked T are Treatment FertiQoL items. Items marked with an R need to be reversed before summing. For these items use the reverse of the response scale (4 to 0, instead of 0 to 4) so that higher scores reflect higher quality of life.
1) Reverse items.
2) Calculate raw scores by summing all items that belong to the subscale or total scale. For the Core FertiQoL add all ‘Q’ items (24 items). For the Treatment FertiQoL add all the ‘T’ items (10 items). For the Total FertiQoL add all Core and Treatment items (34 items).
3) To compute scaled scores for the subscale and total scales, multiply the relevant raw score by 25/k, where k is the number of items in the subscale. The scaled scores range is 0 to 100.
4) Use items marked A (general physical health) and B (general life satisfaction) as background information
Downloads
Scoring example
Download/print FertiQol scoring instructions