CURRENT HEALTH AS A GENERAL HEALTH INDICATOR .2. EVALUATION OF RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

Objective - To examine whether a Current Health scale produces reliabl e and valid measures of self perceived health status. Design - Examina tion of reliability, based on internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha c oefficient). Examination of validity focusing on convergent and discri minant validity. Subjects - 2263 male and female heads of households w ho participated in The Danish Health Study 1982-83. The survey used it ems pertaining to health status from Rand's Health Insurance Study. Re sults - The scale has acceptable properties and is preferable to a sin gle item measure of general health status. It can be used in general p ractice.