[A hospital suited version of the German SF-36 and its psychometric comparison with the original questionnaire].
OBJECTIVE
The application of the Short-Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36) in hospitals is sometimes problematic, because some formulations like "at work" or "at home" in some items are not adequate in a hospital context. To account for this problem, we deleted 23 words like "at work" and "at home" from the SF-36 and generated thus a slightly modified version, the SF-36 m. The present paper deals primarily with two questions: is the SF-36 m well applicable in hospitals and is it still equivalent with the original version?


METHODS
The SF-36 m was applied in more than 300 patients in two different hospitals. In one hospital a randomised design was used to assess the equivalence of SF-36 and SF-36 m before treatment.


RESULTS
The reported high percentages of missing values in four critical scales were no more observed, when the SF-36 m was applied at the end of hospital stays. Only minor differences between SF-36 and SF-36 m with effect sizes < 0.20 were observed, although the scale "physical role function" and especially item 4d showed unexpectedly significantly higher values in the SF-36 m (p < 0.10). Additionally, higher and significant differences were observed between the applications of the questionnaires at home and in the hospital.


CONCLUSIONS
Opposed to the original SF-36 the SF-36 m is well applicable at the end of hospital stays. SF-36 and SF-36 m show only minor differences in the comparison of their equivalence. The application of SF-36 and SF-36 m in hospitals seems to yield more favourable scores of health related quality of life than the application at home.
Müller
H
H
Forschungsinstitut für Balneologie und Kurortwissenschaft, Bad Elster. horst.mueller@fbk.sms.sachsen.de
Franke
A
A
Schuck
P
P
Resch
K L
KL
D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005858:Germany; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010351:Patient Discharge; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results