Health and Daily Living Form (HDL)

Instrument Description:

The Health and Daily Living Form (HDL) is a structured assessment for patient and community groups that assesses health-related factors such as alcohol consumption, drinking problems, and depression. It also includes indices of social functioning, acute and chronic life stressors, and social resources. Norms are based on 424 depressed patients and 424 community adults.

Some of the more specific dimensions measured by the HDL include:

Indices of Health-Related Functioning - self-confidence, physical symptoms, medical conditions, global depression, depressive mood and ideation, endogenous depression, depressive features, alcohol consumption, drinking problems, smoking symptoms, and medication use.

Indices of Social Functioning and Resources - Social activities with friends, network contacts, number of close relationships, quality of significant relationship.

Indices of Family Functioning - family social activities, family task sharing, household tasks performed by self, household tasks performed by partner, family arguments, negative home environment.

Indices of Life Change Events - negative life change events, exit events, positive life change events.

Instrument Development and Research Contact: Rudolf Moos, Ph.D.

Instrument and scoring instruction availability: Rudolf Moos, Ph.D.

References:

These papers describe the initial samples of patients and community controls involved in the development of the Health and Daily Living Form.

Billings, A., Cronkite, R., & Moos, R. (1983). Social-environmental factors in unipolar depression: Comparisons of depressed patients and nondepressed controls. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 92, 119 133.

Billings, A., & Moos, R. (1984). Chronic and nonchronic unipolar depression: The differential role of environmental stressors and resources. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 172, 1-11.