Resources for Research

Compendium of Quality of Life Research: An Annotated Bibliography

Released February 2004

Quality of life is of keen interest to leaders throughout the military, and the Office of Military Community and Family Policy is charged with the responsibility of managing the quality of life of military service members and their families. Of particular interest to the Department of Defense are the three main key work outcomes: performance, retention, and satisfaction. In the work environment, each of these outcomes is embedded in a much larger context that can be described as the worker’s quality of life. Rather than try to review all scholarly work about quality of life, this annotated bibliography, compiled by the Military Family Research Institute, specifically focuses on the implications of quality of life for work performance, satisfaction and retention.

We use a domain-based approach to understanding quality of life. The six major domains of life experience included in this annotated bibliography are:

1. Community
2. Employment
3. Marriage
4. Parenting
5. Self/well-being
6. Social support networks

We also include the special domain of work and family. Within each domain, individuals are subject to objective conditions, and individuals’ experience subjective reactions to those conditions. Also important to quality of life domains are key interpersonal or psychological processes. These elements of quality of life formed the basis of our search terms. In this manner, the annotated bibliography examines quality of life using a conceptual framework that links quality of life to work outcomes.

What This Document Contains and How It Was Compiled

How to Use the Annotated Bibliography

View the Annotated Bibliography