2.4.1 Short Form-36 (SF-36)
SF-36 is the best-known and the most widely used health-related quality
of life scale in health care researches. It has been reported that it
can be used to evaluate QOL in patients with physical
illness23, 24.
The scale was developed by Ware et al. in 1987 to assess the overall
quality of life in healthy and ill individuals25. The
validity and reliability of its Turkish version was made by Pınar in
199526. The scale, consists of 36 items, two main
(physical and mental), and eight subdimensions. The subdimensions of the
scale were: (1) physical functioning (PF), (2) role limitation due to
physical problems (PR), (3) social functioning (SF), (4) role limitation
due to emotional problems (RE), (5) mental health (MH), (6) vitality
(VT), (7) bodily pain (BP) and8 general health
perception (GH). In total and subdimensions, the scale score ranges from
0 to 100, and the increase in the score of each health subdimension
indicates a positive increase in health-related quality of life. In the
study of Pınar (1995), the test-re test value of SF-36 was found to be
0.94 and the Cronbach’s alpha value of internal consistency was 0.91. In
our study, Cronbach’s alpha values of the subdimensions ranged from
0.59 to 0.97 (PF = 0.95; PR = 0.92; BP 0.88; GH 0.71; VT = 0.65; SF =
0.60, RE 0.65; MH = 0.59).