Comparisons of the Brief Form of the World Health Organization Quality of Life and Short Form-36 for Persons With Spinal Cord Injuries

Abstract

This study compared the psychometric performance of the brief form of the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) with the Short-Form 36 (SF-36) for people with traumatic spinal cord injuries in Taiwan. From a nationwide registry of traumatic spinal cord injuries, 187 subjects completed telephone interviews. Score distributions, internal consistency, intrainterviewer and interinterviewer test-retest reliabilities, convergent and known-groups validities, and the responsiveness between the WHOQOL-BREF (with an overall quality-of-life facet and four domains) and the SF-36 (with eight domains) were compared. Both the WHOQOL-BREF and the SF-36 exhibited low missing values (0.9-7.7 vs. 2.1-3.8), very good internal consistencies (Cronbach's alpha coefficients of 0.75-0.87 vs. 0.72-0.98), intrainterviewer reliabilities (intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.84-0.98 vs. 0.71-0.99) and responsive statistics (0.787-1.83 vs. 0-0.92), and fair interinterviewer reliabilities (intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.56-0.95 vs. 0.41-0.98), whereas the WHOQOL-BREF's domains converged with the conceptually related domains of the SF-36. Nonetheless, compared with the SF-36, the WHOQOL-BREF had lower percentages of ceiling (0.0%-0.4% vs. 0.4%-63.8%) and floor (0.0%-1.3% vs. 0.4%-28.1%) values and better known-groups validity and responsiveness. The WHOQOL-BREF is an appropriate generic health-related quality of life measure for persons with traumatic spinal cord injuries.