Current health as a general health indicator. I: Evaluation of scaling properties.
OBJECTIVE
To examine to which extent 9 items pertaining to health perception fulfil the Likert criteria for adding the scores for each item to make up a Current Health scale. The term "scaling" denotes the process of constructing a scale from questionnaire items.


METHODS
Examination of convergent and discriminant validity of items, groupings of items, item variance, and information content of each item.


METHODS
2,263 male and female heads of households who participated in The Danish Health Study 1982-83. The survey used items pertaining to health status from Rand's Health Insurance Study.


RESULTS
The Likert criteria for constructing a scale of the nine items are fulfilled except for one item. The lack of fulfillment for this item can eventually be attributed to the translation.
Bentzen
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Institute of Community Health, Department of General Practice, Odene, Denmark.
Christiansen
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T
D000328:Adult; D003718:Denmark; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires