Radosevich DM, Pruitt M.

AHSR FHSR Annu Meet Abstr Book. 1996; 13: 59.

Health Outcomes Institute, Bloomington, MN 55425, USA.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: The research objective was to test the comparability of a 12-item health status questionnaire called the HSQ-12 with the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item short-form (SF-36) health survey. STUDY POPULATION: A group of 955 patients from a midwestern cardiology practice was used to test the replicate reliability of the HSQ-12 and to recalibrate scoring algorithms for the eight health status scales. Eight hundred ten employees from a large Minnesota health system were surveyed as part of comparability testing. STUDY DESIGN: In each of the study populations, subjects were randomly assigned to one of four groups in a repeated measures, counter balanced design. Each group received two surveys in the following configuation: HSQ-12 followed by HSQ-12, HSQ-12 followed by SF-36, SF-36 followed by HSQ-12, and SF-36 followed by SF-36. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Median replicate reliability of the HSQ-12 was approximately 0.78 with a range of 0.66 to 0.86 (p<0.001). Only Social Functioning and the Role-Limitations Attributed to Emotional Problems failed to reach the minimum reliability (coefficients greater than 0.70) recommended for group level comparisons. The criteria for parallel tests were applied, testing the equivalency of health status mean scores, the distribution and ranking of scores, and the correlation between the scores on any other variable. The Health Perception scale scores derived from the two forms were statistically significantly different from one another (F ratio 3.46 (3, 360); p<0.017). A statistically significantly higher percentage of subjects with ceiling scores for Physical Functioning and Health Perception using the HSQ-12, and Role-Emotional scale score using the SF-36. No statistically significant differences in respondent ranking were found between the HSQ-12 and SF-36. CONCLUSIONS: The weight of evidence supports the comparability of the health status scale scores obtained from the HSQ-12 with those obtained using the SF-36. POLICY IMPLICATIONS: Population-based applications of health status assessment in managed care require quality measures with acceptable psychometric properties that are relevant and practical to use. While the results support few distributional differences between the HSQ-12 and SF-36, it is to be expected that the shortened instrument will suffer from attenuated discriminate validity, as well as floor and ceiling effects in seriously ill and health populations.

Publication Types:

• Meeting Abstracts

Keywords:

• Biomedical Research
• Data Collection
• Evaluation Studies
• Health Status
• Health Surveys
• Humans
• Minnesota
• Population Groups
• Psychometrics
• Questionnaires
• Research Design
• Weights and Measures
• hsrmtgs

Other ID:

• HTX/97604288

UI: 102222190

From Meeting Abstracts