Quality of life in a broader perspective: Does ASCOT reflect the capability approach?

Purpose Economic evaluation of services and interventions in care services tends to focus on quality of life(QoL) based on health-related measures such as EQ5D, with a major focus on health and functioning. The Capability Approach (CA) provides an alternative framework for measuring QoL and challenges some of the conventional issues in the current practice of measurement of QoL. The Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) aims to measure social care-related QoL in a broad sense. This article investigates whether and, if so, how the ASCOT addresses issues put on the agenda by the CA. Methods Literature analysis concerning theoretical assumptions and arguments of CA and ASCOT.