روانشناسی بالینی و شخصیت (Nov 2003)
Validity of the SF-36 Health Survey Questionnaire in Two Iranian Samples
Abstract
This paper presents the finding of two studies which examining the validity and reliability of the Short Form 36 Health Survey Questionnaire (SF-36) tapping a wide range of physical and mental health constructs. In the first study, 404 male and female university students completed the SF-36 questionnaire. The questionnaire was re-administrated to a subsample of 120 of the original espondents one week after the first assessment. Considerable evidence was found for the reliability of the FS-36 questionnaire (cronbach & values for eight dimensions of the SF-36 ranged from 0.70 to 0.85, and the corresponding values for test-retest coefficients ranged from 0.43 to 0.79). In the second study, the validity of the SF-36 questionnaire was examined through distinguishing between groups with expected health differences. In this study, 48 healthy subjects were compared with 84 ill subjects on all eight dimensions of the SF-36. The scores of these two groups were significantly on all eight dimensions. These results provide support for the SF-36 as an instrument for measuring health perception in Iranian adult samples. According to the present finding, the SF-36 is easy to use, acceptable to subjects and fulfills stringent criteria of reliability and validity. The present authors highly recommend further studies aimed at examining the sensitivity of SF-36 to health status changes over time.
