It is generally accepted that pressure ulcers adversely affect the quality of life of many patients, but there is little data to substantiate this assumption. Michael Clark discusses the use of health-related quality of life instruments to gather generic and disease-specific information on the effect of pressure ulcers. New information is presented from a cohort study of 2,507 hospital patients with whom a generic health instrument – the Short-Form 36® (SF-36®) – was used to gather health-related quality of life data. The results of this study illustrate the difficulty in using self-report measures in a population of patients with, or likely to develop, pressure ulcers. The potential for proxy ratings and the development of a pressure ulcer disease-specific health-related quality of life instrument are also discussed.