Comparisons of the brief form of the World Health Organization Quality of Life and Short Form-36 for persons with spinal cord injuries.

Full Abstract

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.

DESIGN:
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.

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Author information

Author/s: Lin, Mau-Roung (MR); Hwang, Hei-Fen (HF); Chen, Chih-Yi (CY); Chiu, Wen-Ta (WT);

Affiliation: Institute of Injury Prevention and Control, College of Public Health and Nutrition, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Validation Studies

Journal: American journal of physical medicine & rehabilitation / Association of Academic Physiatrists (Am J Phys Med Rehabil), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Feb; vol 86 (issue 2) : pp 104-13

Dates: Created 2007/01/25; Completed 2007/02/22; Revised 2007/11/15;

PMID: 17075363, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Female
Humans
Interviews as Topic
Male
Middle Aged
Psychometrics - instrumentation

Quality of Life
Questionnaires
Registries
Sickness Impact Profile
Spinal Cord Injuries - physiopathology; psychology; rehabilitation
Taiwan
World Health Organization

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