This descriptive and exploratory study aims to analyze the scientific production regarding quality of life by the public universities in São Paulo State on the basis of data collected from the elected universities' virtual libraries. The preliminary analysis resulted in 84 studies: 71.4% were Master's Theses, 23.8% doctoral dissertations and 4.7% associate professor's theses from 1993 to 2001. 31 studies were excluded from this total. The 53 (100%) remaining studies had been developed with male and female adults (71.7%) who presented some type of pathology (69.8%) and used existing instruments to assess quality of life (77.3%). The most frequently used instrument was the Medical Outcomes Studies 36-item Short-Form (MOS SF-36), found in 18 (34%) of these studies.
quality of life; information systems; dissertations; information storage and retrieval
