The American journal of managed care
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Health-related quality-of-life instruments can yield important health information that is often distinct from objective measures of symptoms and disease severity that clinicians are most attuned to. Comprehensive health assessment can be difficult because there are many available measurement instruments that vary in their scope and content. ⋯ The Assessing the Impact of Disease framework aims to clarify the process of selecting appropriate assessment instruments. Three common diseases are discussed in depth to illustrate the applicability of Assessing the Impact of Disease in distinguishing between symptom, severity, and health-related quality-of-life measurements.