A research on measuring health status for residents in rural areas / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective　To study the possibility of measuring health status for residents in rural areas by the Chinese SF-36 scale. Methods　Health status for 207 residents in rural areas of Fuyang city who were 14 years old and over was measured by the Chinese SF-36 scale. The reliability and validity were analyzed. Results　The internal consistency reliability coefficients (Cronbach'α) exceeded 0.50 for all scales except SF and RE scales. Inter-scale correlation coefficients were lower than Cronbach'α coefficients for all scales except SF scale. Factor analysis identified three principal components, which could be used to explain 64.6% of the total variance. The differences of scale scores between the young group and the middle age group weren't significant. There weren't significant differences of scale scores between sexes except RP scale. The differences of scale scores between smokers and no-smokers, drinkers and no-drinkers weren't significant. Nor were the differences between various educational levels. Conclusion　Whether the Chinese SF-36 scale is suitable for measurement of health status for residents in rural areas needs further studies to give more evidences.