| Name of the Instrument/Tool | Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36-Item (SF-36) |
| First Description |
Ware Jr JE, Sherbourne CD. The MOS 36-item short-form health survey (SF-36): I. Conceptual framework and item selection. Medical care. 1992:473-83. |
| Year | 1992 |
| Domains | |
| Concept of constructs | Fatigue, Health related quality of life, Pain, Physical function |
| Population/Disease | Generic |
| Originally developed for | --- |
| Other rheumatic diseases where can be applied (only if validated) |
Ankylosing spondylitis (AS), Fibromyalgia (FM), Gout, Inflammatory arthritis (IA), Low Back Pain (LBP), Osteoarthritis (OA), Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) |
| Additional population with no rheumatic diseases |
Yes general population |
| Language: Originally published in | English |
| Available in Language | Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish |
| REFERENCE IDENTIFICATION | |
| Author/s | Ware JE, Sherbourne CD |
| Title | The MOS 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). I. Conceptual framework and item selection |
| Journal | Med care |
| Year | 1992 |
| Vol | 30 |
| Num | 6 |
| Pages | 473-483 |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Other references of interest | |
| Link | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8450681 |
| Brief Description |
The MOS 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36): II. Psychometric and clinical tests of validity in measuring physical and mental health constructs. |
| Link | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27757230/ |
| Brief Description |
SF-36 total score as a single measure of health-related quality of life: Scoping review. |
| Link | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11763202/ |
| Brief Description |
SF-36 summary component scores accurately summarize subscale scores? |
| Instrument/Tool Translations References | |
| Link | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7775992 |
| Brief Description |
Validation of a French-language version of the MOS 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) in young healthy adults. |
| Link | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8560303 |
| Brief Description |
German translation and psychometric testing of the SF-36 Health Survey: preliminary results from the IQOLA Project. |
| Link | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7783470 |
| Brief Description |
The Spanish version of the SF-36 Health Survey (the SF-36 health questionnaire): an instrument for measuring clinical results |
| DEVELOPER CONTACT INFORMATION | |
| Correspondence to | John E. Ware Jr. PhD |
| jware@qmetric.com | |
| Address | QualityMetric, Inc. Address: 640 George Washington Hwy, Suite 201, RI. Phone 401 334 8800, x242, Fax: 401 334 8801 |
| Website | www.sf36.com |
| Available | --- |
| Links |
SF-36 |
| DESCRIPTION OF THE INSTRUMENT | |
| Type Of Measure | Questionnaire |
| Brief Description |
The SF-36 is a multi-item generic health survey intended to measure “general health concepts not specific to any age, disease, or treatment group”; it's suitable for use in general, as well as in clinical populations and, as such, can be used to compare health between populations and between diseases. Content: SF 36 measures 8 health domains: physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain, general health, vitality, social functioning, role emotional, and mental health. It can also be used to derive 2 aggregate summary measures: the physical component summary (PCS) score ( where highest weights are given to the physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain, and general health scales and the mental component summary (MCS) score (where higher weights are given to the vitality, social functioning, role emotional, and mental health scales). |
| Number of Items | 36 (35 of which are used in the calculation of 8 separate scale scores) |
| Range | 0-100 |
| Responses options/scale |
Yes and 5 indicates much worse than a year ago. |
| Developed for | Both |
| PRACTICAL APPLICATION | |
| Method of administration | Interviewer/assessor, Self-administered |
| Recommendations to score |
The SF-36 contains a mixture of positively- (higher scores indicate better health) and negatively-worded response scales, so some items need to be recoded prior to scoring. The scale scores are calculated by summing responses across scale items and then transforming these raw scores to a 0–100 scale. Computerized scoring algorithms are available and can be used to produce norm-based T scores for each scale (with a mean of 50 and SD of 10) as well as the PCS and MCS summary scores. |
| Score Interpretation | Higher scores indicate better health |
| Cut-off points | --- |
| Cut-off points applied to | --- |
| Smallest detectable change if described | --- |
| Smallest detectable change applied to | --- |
| Completion time by the patient | 7-10 minutes |
| Scoring time by the assessor | 0 minutes |
| Training to score | Not necessary |
| Strengths | Useful in clinical practice & research, Widely used |
| Limitations | Complex scoring, Copyrighted, Floor effect |
| OTHER COMMENTS | |
| Other Comments | --- |