Quality of Life Test (WHOQOL-BREF)
See what each side of quality of life means, how it is scored, and how your result is read against the population that actually fits you.
The WHOQOL-BREF is a short, internationally validated self-report measure of quality of life - how you perceive your position in life across the things that matter to you. Developed by the World Health Organization through a multi-country project, it captures wellbeing in a way that holds up across cultures, across four core domains.
The model
What it measures
Select a domain to see what it covers. Each reflects your own appraisal of that part of your life over the past two weeks, and the result is a profile rather than a single number - a person can feel strong physically while strained socially, or content with their relationships while their environment weighs on them.
These are domains of subjective wellbeing, which is exactly what the WHOQOL is designed to measure. The result describes how you currently perceive your quality of life; it is informational, not an external or clinical verdict on your health.
Energy, sleep, mobility, everyday activity, and freedom from pain or discomfort.
- PHPhysical Health
Energy, sleep, mobility, everyday activity, and freedom from pain or discomfort.
Facets: Energy and fatigue, Sleep and rest, Mobility, Pain and discomfort.
- PSPsychological Health
Mood, self-esteem, concentration, and how positively you feel about yourself and your life.
Facets: Positive feelings, Self-esteem, Concentration, Body image.
- SOSocial Relationships
The quality of your personal relationships and the support you feel you have around you.
Facets: Personal relationships, Social support, Companionship, Intimacy.
- ENEnvironment
Your sense of safety, financial security, living conditions, and access to information and services.
Facets: Safety and security, Financial resources, Living conditions, Access to services.
The evidence
Science and validity
The WHOQOL instruments were developed by the World Health Organization through a multi-country project specifically so that quality of life could be assessed comparably across cultures and languages. The WHOQOL-BREF, a 26-item short form, was validated in international field trials and shows good internal consistency, sensible relationships among its domains, and the ability to discriminate between people in better and worse health - the properties expected of a sound measure of subjective wellbeing.
You rate each item on a 5-point scale anchored to the past two weeks, and each domain is the mean of its items, so that a higher domain score always means better perceived quality of life in that area. There are no pass/fail cut-offs; the result is read against a comparison group as a percentile. It is not a diagnostic test: it measures how you perceive your life, not the presence or absence of any disorder, and a lower domain score signals an area worth attention, not an illness.
Where you stand
How a score becomes a percentile
A raw score only means something against a comparison group. For example, a Physical Health domain score of 4.3 on the 1-5 item-mean metric sits near the 70th percentile against international field-trial data - better perceived physical wellbeing than roughly seven in ten adults. Drag the slider to see how a score on each domain maps to a percentile; your real result is matched to the population that fits you when you take the test.
Your result, visualised across every dimension
Take the test once and see a full profile like this example, each dimension placed against the population most relevant to you, with plain-language interpretation.
See my full profile →Example profile shown for illustration.
The reference data
Benchmarked against the population that fits you
We benchmark your result against the population that actually resembles you, across 23 reference groups.
Each reference group is used as its own benchmark, not to rank one country against another.
How it works
What the questions feel like
Illustrative statements showing the style of the items. These are examples, not the official scored items.
How satisfied are you with the balance between rest and activity in your week?
Illustrative example in the style of the scale, not an official scored item.
How content are you with the closeness of your relationships?
Illustrative example, not an official scored item.
How much do your surroundings support the life you want to lead?
Illustrative example, not an official scored item.
How positive have you felt about yourself over the past two weeks?
Illustrative example, not an official scored item.
Honest strengths and limitations
Strengths
- Gives a four-domain profile, so you can see which areas of life feel strong right now and which feel more strained.
- Short (about 7 minutes), developed by the WHO, and validated across many countries and languages.
- Designed for cross-cultural comparability, with good reliability and sensitivity to change over time.
Limitations
- It is a self-report of subjective wellbeing over the last two weeks, so it captures how you perceive your life now and can shift with mood, rather than a fixed trait.
- It is an educational quality-of-life measure, not a diagnostic instrument; a lower domain score points to an area worth attention, not an illness, and it does not detect or rule out any condition.
- Cross-country mean comparisons are confounded by response styles and measurement differences, so percentiles are a guide, not a verdict.
See your full profile
A complete report, matched to the population that fits you, with plain-language interpretation of every trait.
Frequently asked questions
What does the WHOQOL-BREF measure?
It measures your own perception of your quality of life over the past two weeks across four core domains - physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environment. It captures subjective wellbeing, meaning how you experience your life, rather than an external clinical assessment.
Is this a mental health diagnosis?
No. It is an educational quality-of-life self-assessment, not a diagnostic instrument. It does not detect, diagnose, or rule out any condition - it summarises how you have been perceiving different areas of your life. If a result concerns you, please talk to a qualified professional.
Why does it ask about the last two weeks?
The WHOQOL-BREF deliberately anchors its questions to the previous two weeks so that answers reflect your recent, lived experience rather than a vague lifetime average. This makes the result more concrete and more sensitive to change - retaking it later can show how your wellbeing has shifted.
How long does it take?
About 7 minutes - 26 items on a 5-point scale.
Related tests
- The WHOQOL Group (1998). Development of the World Health Organization WHOQOL-BREF quality of life assessment. Psychological Medicine, 28(3), 551-558.
- Skevington, S. M., Lotfy, M., & O'Connell, K. A. (2004). The World Health Organization's WHOQOL-BREF quality of life assessment: Psychometric properties and results of the international field trial. Quality of Life Research, 13(2), 299-310.
The WHOQOL-BREF is the work of the WHOQOL Group / World Health Organization; this independent informational page describes the instrument and links to the official source at who.int.