Comparisons of the brief form of the World Health Organization Quality of Life and Short Form-36 for persons with spinal cord injuries.
OBJECTIVE
This study compared the psychometric performance of the brief form of the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) with the Short-Form 36 (SF-36) for people with traumatic spinal cord injuries in Taiwan.


METHODS
From a nationwide registry of traumatic spinal cord injuries, 187 subjects completed telephone interviews. Score distributions, internal consistency, intrainterviewer and interinterviewer test-retest reliabilities, convergent and known-groups validities, and the responsiveness between the WHOQOL-BREF (with an overall quality-of-life facet and four domains) and the SF-36 (with eight domains) were compared.


RESULTS
Both the WHOQOL-BREF and the SF-36 exhibited low missing values (0.9-7.7 vs. 2.1-3.8), very good internal consistencies (Cronbach's alpha coefficients of 0.75-0.87 vs. 0.72-0.98), intrainterviewer reliabilities (intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.84-0.98 vs. 0.71-0.99) and responsive statistics (0.787-1.83 vs. 0-0.92), and fair interinterviewer reliabilities (intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.56-0.95 vs. 0.41-0.98), whereas the WHOQOL-BREF's domains converged with the conceptually related domains of the SF-36. Nonetheless, compared with the SF-36, the WHOQOL-BREF had lower percentages of ceiling (0.0%-0.4% vs. 0.4%-63.8%) and floor (0.0%-1.3% vs. 0.4%-28.1%) values and better known-groups validity and responsiveness.


CONCLUSIONS
The WHOQOL-BREF is an appropriate generic health-related quality of life measure for persons with traumatic spinal cord injuries.
Lin
Mau-Roung
MR
Institute of Injury Prevention and Control, College of Public Health and Nutrition, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
Hwang
Hei-Fen
HF
Chen
Chih-Yi
CY
Chiu
Wen-Ta
WT
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011788:Quality of Life; D012042:Registries; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan; D014944:World Health Organization