On the vicissitudes of health appraisal.

Little consensus exists for a definition of health. Economic and other forces are pushing health professionals to develop not only a definition of health consistent with the prevalent construct, holism, but also a means of quantifying health. One approach, which was used as part of a study to explore perceived health status among middle-aged women, was to select measures of specific dimensions of health and to sum scores on each. Factor analysis revealed validity to this approach when Perceived Health Status was operationally defined as the sum of scores on the Health Perceptions Questionnaire, the Affect Balance Scale, and the Life Satisfaction Index.