Background: Measuring health status of elderly is essential for the prediction of their health care needs. Health research usually considers objective outcome measure; however there is a need to increase self-reported measures of health. Aims: The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the SF36 among a group of Lebanese elderly. Methods: It was a cross-sectional observational study. A systematic sample of elderly people aged 60 years and more was selected from dispensary, private and governmental hospitals in Lebanon. Data were collected using face-to-face interview. The first part of the questionnaire consisted of sociodemographic characteristics. The second part consisted of the Arabic version of the SF-36. The third part consisted of Activity of Daily Living (ADL) scale, presence of health problems and number of medication consumed per day. Results: A total of 250 elderly people were included. The mean age was 70.69+/-7.70 years. Cronbach alphas for all SF-36 scales exceeded 0.798. The intra-Class correlation coefficient varied between 0.675 (item 2) and 0.980 (items 14, 16 and 18) indicating good reliability. The quality of life (QoL) of women was poorer than men (p<0.001). It was significantly lesser when the number of health problems (p<0.001) and medications (p<0.001) increased, and the ADL score (p<0.05) decreased. Conclusion: SF-36 is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring QoL among Lebanese elderly and could be used for monitoring the QoL of this population.

El Osta N, Kanso F, Saad R, Khabbaz LR, Fakhouri J, El Osta L. Validation of the Arabic version of the SF-36, generic questionnaire of quality of life related to health among the elderly in Lebanon. Eastern Mediterranean health journal = La revue de sante de la Mediterranee orientale = al-Majallah al-sihhiyah li-sharq al-mutawassit. 2019;25(10):706-14.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31774136