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).