SF-36

The Short Form (36) Health Survey is a survey of patient health. The SF-36 is commonly used in health economics as a variable in the QALY unit to determine the cost-effectiveness of a health treatment.

coring

[SF 36 FAQ. http://www.sf-36.org/faq/scoring.aspx?id=4 ] The SF-36® consists of eight scaled scores, which are the sums of the questions in their section. Each scale is directly transformed into a 0-100 scale on the assumption that each question carries equal weight.

The eight sections are:
*vitality
*physical functioning
*bodily pain
*general health perceptions
*physical role functioning
*emotional role functioning
*social role functioning
*mental health

Uses

[Pearson, L. "Medical Outcome Short Form (36) Health Survey" Updated August 2005. http://www.swin.edu.au/victims/resources/assessment/health/sf36.html ]

*Evaluating individual patients
*Researching the cost-effectiveness of a treatment
*Monitoring and comparing disease burden

Limitations

[Pearson, L. "Medical Outcome Short Form (36) Health Survey" Updated August 2005. http://www.swin.edu.au/victims/resources/assessment/health/sf36.html ]

*The survey does not take into consideration a sleep variable
*The survey has a low response rate in the >65 population

Notes

Further reading

[http://apps.isiknowledge.com/full_record.do?product=WOS&search_mode=AdvancedSearch&qid=56&SID=1A2GlGnCoJbFFB8G83b&page=1&doc=1] Comparing the incomparable? A systematic review of competing techniques for converting descriptive measures of health status into QALY-weights

[http://www.sf-36.org/] SF-36: A community for measuring health outcomes using SF tools