Quality of life of people with mental retardation. Residential versus community living

Quality control plays an important role in the care for people with mental retardation. By law, every care facility in the Netherlands has to develop its own system of internal quality control. Control by the government primarily takes the form of supervision of the quality control systems themselves (‘supervising supervision’). In this process of internal quality control valid and reliable measuring instruments are indispensable. Quality of Life (QOL) is considered to be a proper standard by which to assess the quality of care. After all, care especially when provided around the clock is the main factor determining QOL for many mentally retarded people (Janssen and Vreeke, 1995) The concept of QOL is based on some common principles (cf, Schalock and Begab, 1990). First, QOL is considered to be