The Short Form-12 Health Survey was a valid instrument in Chinese adolescents.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the construct validity of the standard Chinese Short Form (SF)-12v2 in adolescents.


METHODS
Data collected from the Hong Kong Student Obesity Surveillance project conducted in 2006-2007 were used. The standard Chinese SF-12v2 was first evaluated against clinical criteria previously used for the evaluation of SF-12 or SF-36. The data were then randomly split into training and validation halves for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, respectively.


RESULTS
A total of 31,357 adolescents with mean age of 14.8 years (standard deviation=1.9; range=11.0-18.9) were included. The standard Chinese SF-12v2 effectively distinguished groups differing in doctor-diagnosed health problems, self-reported illnesses in the past 30 days, gender, perceived health in the past 3 months, and health compared with that 12 months back. The mental health scale had low internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.34). The exploratory factor analysis was influenced by method effects, but confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the hypothesized latent structure and the one-factor structure of the SF-12v2, providing fit indices within acceptable limits.


CONCLUSIONS
The two components and a single general health component of the standard Chinese SF-12v2 are appropriate health indicators for Chinese adolescents.
Fong
Daniel Y T
DY
Department of Nursing Studies, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Lam
Cindy L K
CL
Mak
Kwok Kei
KK
Lo
Wing Sze
WS
Lai
Yuen Kwan
YK
Ho
Sai Yin
SY
Lam
Tai Hing
TH
D000293:Adolescent; D044466:Asian People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003625:Data Collection; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006723:Hong Kong / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires