Does being bilingual in English and Chinese influence changes in quality of life scale scores? Evidence from a prospective, population based study.
BACKGROUND
Bilinguals differ from monolinguals in language use, but the influence of bilingualism on changes in Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) scores is not known.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the influence of bilingualism on changes in HRQoL scores.


METHODS
A prospective cohort study of a population-based, disproportionately stratified random sample of monolingual or bilingual ethnic Chinese who completed the Short-Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36) in English or Chinese twice in 2 years. Least squares regression models were used to assess the influence of bilingualism on SF-36 scores, while adjusting for the influence of questionnaire language and determinants of HRQoL.


RESULTS
Usable English and Chinese questionnaires were returned by 1013 and 910 subjects respectively (aged 21-65 years, 48.5% female, 52.8% bilingual). Bilinguals differed from monolinguals in known determinants of HRQoL (being younger and better educated), changes in determinants of HRQoL over 2 years (more bilinguals had changes in work or marital status) and had mean SF-36 scores that were up to 10 points higher than monolinguals. After adjusting for these differences, bilingualism did not influence 2 year change scores for any of 8 SF-36 scales.


CONCLUSIONS
Bilingualism did not influence changes in HRQoL scores over 2 years in this large, population-based study of subjects fluent in English and/or Chinese (representing an alphabet and/or pictogram based language respectively).
Thumboo
Julian
J
Department of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore. julian_thumboo@sgh.com.sg
Cheung
Yin-Bun
YB
Machin
David
D
Feng
Pao-Hsii
PH
Boey
Mee-Leng
ML
Thio
Szu-tien
ST
Fong
Kok-Yong
KY
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002681:China / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019303:Multilingualism; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011788:Quality of Life; D012846:Singapore; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires