PhysioBiometrics Inc. · Measures
Measures
Validated instruments for measuring what actually matters to older people — free to download and use.
Older Persons Active Living Related Quality of Life
OPAL is a 17-item measure of the positive ways an older person lives actively. It was built from what older people themselves said matters — not from a list of deficits — and it is validated across four countries and four languages.
“Aging is not a problem to be solved rather a mystery to be lived.”
Cole, 1992 — the premise OPAL was built on
interviews across 4 countries
unique “ways” of living actively
items in the final measure
people in the validity evidence
How OPAL was built and tested
Development, validation and scoring on one page.
| Download the infographic |
Seventeen ways of living life
One question: “This questionnaire asks about the ways you have been living your life during the last six months. How often have you felt…”
Response options
- 0Rarely or never
- 1Sometimes
- 2Often
- 3Always or almost always
Scoring
- ✓Raw score 0–51, converted to 0–100
- ✓Clinically meaningful difference: 6/51, or 12/100
- ✓No ceiling effect — room to improve on every item
- ✓Recall period: the past six months
OPAL in four languages
Ready-to-print PDFs. Free to use in practice and in research — please cite the two papers below.
English
OPAL
PDF · 1 page
Français
PAVA
PDF · 1 page
Nederlands
OVAL
PDF · 1 page
Español
PMVA
PDF · 1 page
| All four languages in one PDF |
The two source papers
Mayo, N.E., et al. Measuring what matters to older persons for active living: part I content development for the OPAL measure across four countries. Quality of Life Research, 2024; 33(10): 2649–2659.
Mayo, N.E., et al. Measuring what matters to older persons for active living: part II cross-sectional validity evidence for the OPAL measure across four countries. Quality of Life Research, 2024; 33(10): 2661–2673.
Funded by CIHR. NPI: Nancy Mayo (McGill University). Co-PI: Ayse Kuspinar (McMaster University), for the OPAL team.
Using OPAL in a study or a programme?
We would like to hear about it — and we can help with scoring, data capture and interpretation.
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