DISCRIMINANT AND CRITERION VALIDATION OF THE US-SPANISH VERSION OF THE SF-36-HEALTH-SURVEY IN A CUBAN-AMERICAN POPULATION WITH BENIGN PROSTATIC HYPERPLASIA

OBJECTIVES. The study tested the validity of the Medical Outcomes Stud y 36-Item Short-Form (SF-36) Health Survey (originally validated in th e Mexican-American population) in a different Spanish subgroup to dete rmine whether the Spanish version is equally applicable to the Cuban-A merican population. METHODS. Individuals with and without benign prost atic hyperplasia served as the study sample. The SF-36 scores of 264 i ndividuals with benign prostatic hyperplasia were compared with those of 273 individuals without benign prostatic hyperplasia to determine d iscriminant and criterion validity. These individuals were assigned to one of the following groups: non-Hispanic subjects, Cuban subjects wh o took the English version, and Cuban subjects who took the Spanish ve rsion. MANOVA with planned comparisons was used for this analysis. RES ULTS. In all three culture/language groups, the quality-of-life scores of individuals without benign prostatic hyperplasia were significantl y different than those of benign prostatic hyperplasia individuals. Th ese results demonstrated that the English and Spanish versions can dif ferentiate between individuals with and without benign prostatic hyper plasia. Moreover, the quality-of-life scores of Cuban subjects with an d without benign prostatic hyperplasia who took the English version we re statistically similar to those of their counterparts who took the S panish version. CONCLUSIONS. The US-Spanish version of the SF-36 appea rs to be valid when used to measure health status in Cuban-American su bjects with benign prostatic hyperplasia. Further studies should be co nducted to verify the validity of the US-Spanish version of the SF-36 for other health conditions.