ABSTRACT
Objective To evaluate the validity and reliability of simplified Chinese SF-36v2 questionnaire for assessment of life quality of people immigrating to high altitude at different time periods.Methods Two hundred and forty-eight Chinese young males,aged 16-36 years (mean 22.1 years),immigrating to an altitude of 4520m plateau for 0.3-10.8 years (mean 2.3 years),were selected by cluster sampling methods.The general demographic characteristics questionnaire and simplified Chinese SF-36v2 scale were investigated by self-administered questionnaire.Thirty-four subjects were randomly sampled and re-examined by questionnaire after 4 weeks.Results A total of 252 questionnaires were sent out,and a total of 248 valid questionnaires (98.4％) were collected.The scores of 8 scales in SF-36v2,including physical function (PF),role-physical (RP),bodily pain (BP),general health (GH),vitality (VT),social function (SF),role-emotional (RE) and mental health (MH),were 78.50 ± 15.34,63.30 ± 39.65,70.60 ± 17.69,56.40 ± 18.21,59.10 ± 18.18,85.70 ± 18.90,53.68 ± 41.65,59.35 ± 13.61.The floor effects were 0 except for RP (17.80％) and RE (27.92％) and the ceiling effects were 5.08％,40.11％,3.55％,0,2.54％,9.64％,31.47％,0.The split half reliability of SF-36v2 scale was 0.632-0.800,and the Cranbach's coefficient of α was 0.641-0.824,the test-retest reliability coefficient was 0.543-0.848.The success rate of set validity was 100％,and the total discriminant validity success rate was 95.36％.Factor analysis was used to extract 2 principal factors,which could explain 69.5％ of the total variance.Conclusion The simplified Chinese SF-36v2 scale has good internal consistency,reliability and validity,and it can be used to assess the quality of life in different periods.