title: A methodological review of the Short Form Health Survey 36 (SF-36) and its derivatives among breast cancer survivors.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  A systematic review of the validity, reliability and sensitivity of the Short Form (SF) health survey measures among breast cancer survivors.
  
  
  METHODS
  We searched a number of databases for peer-reviewed papers. The methodological quality of the papers was assessed using the COnsenus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The review identified seven papers that assessed the psychometric properties of the SF-36 (n = 5), partial SF-36 (n = 1) and SF-12 (n = 1) among breast cancer survivors. Internal consistency scores for the SF measures ranged from acceptable to good across a range of language and ethnic sub-groups. The SF-36 demonstrated good convergent validity with respective subscales of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Treatment-General scale and two lymphedema-specific measures. Divergent validity between the SF-36 and Lymph-ICF was modest. The SF-36 demonstrated good factor structure in the total breast cancer survivor study samples. However, the factor structure appeared to differ between specific language and ethnic sub-groups. The SF-36 discriminated between survivors who reported or did not report symptoms on the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial Symptom Checklist and SF-36 physical sub-scales, but not mental sub-scales, discriminated between survivors with or without lymphedema. Methodological quality scores varied between and within papers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Short Form measures appear to provide a reliable and valid indication of general health status among breast cancer survivors though the limited data suggests that particular caution is required when interpreting scores provided by non-English language groups. Further research is required to test the sensitivity or responsiveness of the measure.
authors.affiliation: UKCRC Centre of Excellence for Public Health, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, c.treanor@qub.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Charlene
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Treanor
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Donnelly
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology*