Normative data and discriminative properties of short form 36 (SF-36) in Turkish urban population

A cross-sectional study. Face to face interviews were carried out with a sample of households. The sample was systematically selected from two urban Health Districts in Izmir, Turkey. The study group consisted of 1,279 people selected from a study population of 46,290 people aged 18 and over.Internal consistencies of the scales were high, with the exception of mental health and vitality. Physical health scales were associated with both age and gender. On the other hand, mental health scales were less strongly associated with age and gender. Women reported poorer health compared to men in general. Social risk factors (employment status, lower education and economic strain) were associated with worse health profiles. The SF-36 was found to be capable of discriminating disease status.Our findings, cautiously generalisable to urban population, suggest that the SF-36 can be a valuable tool for studies on health outcomes in Turkish population. SF-36 may also be a promising measure for research on health inequalities in Turkey and other developing countries.The Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36) has been constructed to represent eight health concepts[1]. It has been referred to as a generic measure since it assesses health concepts that are pertinent to everyone's functional status and well-being. This generic measure can be used in diseased groups as well as general populations. SF-36 also allows comparisons between different disease groups, i.e. patients with rheumatologic disorders versus cardiac patients. SF-36 has been reported as useful in clinical practice, research, health policy evaluations, and population surveys [1-7].SF-36 has been both translated into different languages and adapted to different cultures to obtain comparable data on health status internationally. It has been shown as reliable and able to detect differences between groups defined by age, sex, socio-economic status, geographical region and clinical conditions [2,8]. One of the well-documented c