Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted. The NIH Clinical Center (the research hospital of NIH) is open. For more details about its operating status, please visit cc.nih.gov. Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at opm.gov.

SF-36 and SF-12 Health Status Questionnaire

Abbreviation
SF-36
Description

The SF-36 is a multi-purpose, short-form health survey with only 36 questions. It yields an 8-scale profile of functional health and well-being scores, as well as psychometrically-based physical and mental health summary measures and a preference-based health utility index. It is a generic measure of perceived health status, as opposed to one that targets a specific age, disease, or treatment group. It is used to measure observable and tangible limitations due to poor health and/or bodily pain in physical, social, and role activities. Accordingly, the SF-36 has proven useful in surveys of general and specific populations, comparing the relative burden of diseases, and in differentiating the health benefits produced by a wide range of different treatments. Administration time is about 10-12 minutes. The SF-12 is an even shorter -- 1 page, 2 minute -- survey form that has been shown to yield summary physical and mental health outcome scores that are interchangeable with those from the SF-36.

Category
Physical/General Health