[The norms of SF-36 scale scores in urban and rural residents of Sichuan province].
OBJECTIVE
To develop the norms of SF-36 in Sichuan, China.


METHODS
A total of 1603 rural residents and 646 urban residents were surveyed. Both the US scaling criteria and China scaling criteria were used to score the 8 domains of the SF-36 and compared with the norms of Hong Kong and US populations.


RESULTS
The scores of the 8 domains of the SF-36 using China scaling criteria were highly correlated with those using the US scaling criteria, with correlation coefficients greater than 0.98, however, the mean scores using the two scaling criteria were different significantly. The norms of the Sichuan population were more similar to the Hong Kong norms than the US norms. The scores of the SF-36 were different between different age and sex groups and between urban and rural populations.


CONCLUSIONS
We have developed the norms of SF-36 by age/sex groups in urban and rural population of Sichuan, China.
Department of Social Medicine, School of Public Health, WCUMS, Chengdu 610041, China.
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Li
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Liu
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Li
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Ren
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D012423:Rural Health; D012494:Sampling Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards; D014504:Urban Health