[SF-36 Health Survey in Rehabilitation Research. Findings from the North German Network for Rehabilitation Research, NVRF, within the rehabilitation research funding program].
The SF-36 Health Survey and its 12-item abridged form is an instrument for the assessment of health related quality of life that can be used with healthy persons and patient populations. Its use has been recommended within a large German multicentre rehabilitation research programme. The paper examines missing data across all five study projects of the North German Network for Rehabilitation Research (NVRF) as well as psychometric properties of the instrument. In addition, data were compared to representative norm data using the SF-36 (SF-12) in the German National Health Survey. Results showed that there were few missing data in the SF-36. Examining the impact of age, gender and health status yielded effects of higher age and female gender on missing data. Psychometric analyses showed good to excellent results of the instrument in terms of scale fit and reliability. In terms of convergent validity, medium to high correlation of the SF-36 subscales with comparable instruments (e. g. SCL-90-R) could be found. Summarizing, the SF-36/SF-12 can be recommended for use in rehabilitation research. Analyses regarding sensitivity should be conducted in future studies.
Bullinger
M
M
Arbeitsgruppe Lebensqualitätsforschung bei Erwachsenen und Kindern, Institut und Poliklinik für Medizinische Psychologie, Zentrum für Psychosoziale Medizin, Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf. bullinger@uke.uni-hamburg.de
Morfeld
M
M
Kohlmann
T
T
Nantke
J
J
van den Bussche
H
H
Dodt
B
B
Dunkelberg
S
S
Kirchberger
I
I
Krüger-Bödecker
A
A
Lachmann
A
A
Lang
K
K
Mathis
C
C
Mittag
O
O
Peters
A
A
Raspe
H-H
HH
Schulz
H
H
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000145:classification / Q000523:psychology; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000534:rehabilitation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020380:Needs Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000534:rehabilitation; D011788:Quality of Life; D012016:Reference Values; D012046:Rehabilitation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012106:Research; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors