Increased longevity and the development of sophisticated healthcare technologies and treatments mean that many people now live with chronic health conditions such as cardiovascular disease over extended periods of their lives. In this context, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) has become an important endpoint in evaluations of health interventions. Its use reflects an increasingly biopsychosocial perspective in modern healthcare. HRQoL research first developed in cancer settings where the balance of quality and duration of life became a key concern in decisions to use novel treatments with very serious side-effects and only partial efficacy. However, over the past 20 years there has been a burgeoning of research activity in every major chronic illness category. In cancer, the European Organisation for Research on the Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) has been established by interested professionals.1