Short form-36 and World Health Organization quality of life-brief version: Which one should be chosen for community-dwelling elders in South Taiwan?

Objectives: To evaluate which of the Short Form-36 VI (SF-36 VI) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF) is more suitable for measuring the quality of life among Taiwanese community-dwelling elders. Background: There is still a lack of international consensus regarding the definition and measurement of quality of life (QOL) for community-dwelling elders. Methods: This population-based, cross-sectional study, in which a total of 2133 community-dwelling elders in south Taiwan participated, compared two health-related quality of life surveys. Results: Internal consistency of the SF-36 VI ranged from 0.79 to 0.95, and that of the WHOQOL-BREF ranged from 0.75 to 0.88. Scores of all SF-36 VI scales and summary measures and WHOQOL-BREF domains correlated negatively with age and number of chronic conditions, but correlated positively with levels of education. Younger males with fewer chronic conditions and higher levels of education scored significantly higher on all eight SF-36 VI scales and on all four of the WHOQOL-BREF domains. There was a strong correlation between the SF-36 VI physical component summary (PCS) and the WHOQOL-BREF physical domain (r = 0.77), and between the SF-36 mental component summary (MCS) and all WHOQOL-BREF domains (r range = 0.44-0.62). We found moderate associations among the WHOQOL-BREF psychological, social and environmental domains and the SF-36 VI MCS. All of the SF-36 VI scales, except for Mental Health (MH), correlated moderately with the WHOQOL-BREF physical domain. Conclusions: We conclude that although both the SF-36 and WHOQOL-BREF are useful instruments for determining the quality of life of the community-dwelling elders in south Taiwan, the SF-36 VI may be more suitable than WHOQOL-BREF, especially in terms of physical-related scales.