title: The EUROHIS-QOL 8-item index: psychometric results of a cross-cultural field study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Survey research including multiple health indicators requires brief indices for use in cross-cultural studies, which have, however, rarely been tested in terms of their psychometric quality. Recently, the EUROHIS-QOL 8-item index was developed as an adaptation of the WHOQOL-100 and the WHOQOL-BREF. The aim of the current study was to test the psychometric properties of the EUROHIS-QOL 8-item index.
  
  
  METHODS
  In a survey on 4849 European adults, the EUROHIS-QOL 8-item index was assessed across 10 countries, with equal samples adjusted for selected sociodemographic data. Participants were also investigated with a chronic condition checklist, measures on general health perception, mental health, health-care utilization and social support.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Findings indicated good internal consistencies across a range of countries, showing acceptable convergent validity with physical and mental health measures, and the measure discriminates well between individuals that report having a longstanding condition and healthy individuals across all countries. Differential item functioning was less frequently observed in those countries that were geographically and culturally closer to the UK, but acceptable across all countries. A universal one-factor structure with a good fit in structural equation modelling analyses (SEM) was identified with, however, limitations in model fit for specific countires.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The short EUROHIS-QOL 8-item index showed good cross-cultural field study performance and a satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity, and can therefore be recommended for use in public health research. In future studies the measure should also be tested in multinational clinical studies, particularly in order to test its sensitivity.
authors.affiliation: Center of Psychosocial Medicine, University Hospital of Hamburg, Germany. sischmid@uke.uni-hamburg.de
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mühlan
authors.forename: Mick
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Power
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires