title: Validation of the Dutch version of the CDC core healthy days measures in a community sample.
abstract: An important disadvantage of most indicators of health related quality of life used in public health surveillance is their length. In this study the authors investigated the reliability and validity of a short indicator of health related quality of life, the Dutch version of the four item 'CDC Core Healthy Days Measures' (CDC HRQOL-4). The reliability was evaluated by calculating Cronbach's alpha of the CDC HRQOL-4. The concurrent validity was tested by comparing the CDC HRQOL-4 with three other indicators of health related quality of life, the SF-36, the WHOQoL-BREF and the GHQ-12. The construct validity was evaluated by assessing the ability of the CDC HRQOL-4 to discriminate between respondents with and without a (non-mental) chronic condition, depression, a visit to the general practitioner and use of prescription drugs. Randomly sampled respondents from the city of Utrecht were asked to fill in a questionnaire. 659 respondents (response rate 45%) completed the questionnaire. Participants represented the adult, non-institutionalised population of the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands: 58% women; mean age 41 years; 15% of non-Dutch origin. The reliability of the CDC HRQOL-4 was good. Cronbach's alpha of three of the four CDC HRQOL-4-items was 0.77 which is good for internal consistent scales. The concurrent validity was good. The four items of the CDC HRQOL-4 showed higher correlations with their corresponding domains of the other instrument than the other domains. Comparison of respondents with or without a chronic condition, depression, visit to the GP and use of prescription drugs produced evidence for an excellent construct validity of the CDC HRQOL-4.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, Municipal Health Service Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. j.toet@utrecht.nl
authors.forename: Jaap
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Toet
authors.forename: Hein
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Raat
authors.forename: Erik Jc
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: van Ameijden
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002487:Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States