The rand 36‐item health survey 1.0

Abstract

Recently, Ware and Sherbourne¹ published a new short‐form health survey, the MOS 36‐Item Short‐Form Health Survey (SF‐36), consisting of 36 items included in long‐form measures developed for the Medical Outcomes Study. The SF‐36 taps eight health concepts: physical functioning, bodily pain, role limitations due to physical health problems, role limitations due to personal or emotional problems, general mental health, social functioning, energy/fatigue, and general health perceptions. It also includes a single item that provides an indication of perceived change in health. The SF‐36 items and scoring rules are distributed by MOS Trust, Inc. Strict adherence to item wording and scoring recommendations is required in order to use the SF‐36 trademark. The RAND 36‐Item Health Survey 1.0 (distributed by RAND) includes the same items as those in the SF‐36, but the recommended scoring algorithm is somewhat different from that of the SF‐36. Scoring differences are discussed here and new T‐scores are presented for the 8 multi‐item scales and two factor analytically‐derived physical and mental health composite scores.