The MOS SF-36 health survey :|a validation study with a Turkish sample

Abstract

The main aims of the present study were to assess the reliability and validity of the Turkish translation of the MOS SF-36 Health Survey (SF-36). Reliability assessment yielded high Cronbach alpha values for all the scales, ranging from .75 for the role-emotional scale (RE) to .90 for the mental health scale (MH). Principle components analysis, a technique of psychometric validation, carried out on the individual item scores identified 7 relevant factors, and, with the exception of physical functioning scale (PF) in which the items were spread to two factors, no scale was spread across more than a single factor. The same analysis conducted on the scale scores identified 2 factors revealing the bi-dimensionality, namely the physical and mental dimensions, of the SF-36 as proposed by its authors. Further, the associations between the scales and factors were found similar to the results obtained from other two studies conducted in the U. S. A and Australia. In order to test the clinical validity of the SF-36 it was expected that it should differentiate between groups of subjects with different health status (healthy, physically disordered, and mentally disturbed) in the hypothesized manner. It was found that, with two exceptions, all the results were in line with the hypotheses of the present study. In the light of these favorable results it is concluded that the Turkish version of the SF-36 may serve as a useful measure of health status.