T. Delate et Sj. Coons, The discriminative ability of the 12-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12)in a sample of persons infected with HIV, CLIN THER, 22(9), 2000, pp. 1112-1120
Background: Self-reported health-related quality of life (HRQOL) assesses c
onstructs that transcend laboratory-based clinical parameters. Corroboratio
n of the hypothesized relationships between the 2 types of health indicator
s tie, clinical and HRQOL) could provide evidence of the validity of an HRQ
OL measurement tool.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of scores
on the mental component summary (MCS-12) and physical component summary (PC
S-12) of the 12-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12) to discriminate betwe
en HIV-infected persons in predefined disease-severity groups based on surr
ogate markers.
Methods: This cross-sectional study involved the collection of clinical dat
a tie, CD4 cell count, viral load [HIV-I RNA copies/mL]) from patients' med
ical records and HRQOL data from the SF-12 at 2 HIV specialty clinics. The
ability of SF-12 summary scores to discriminate between patients stratified
by disease severity tie, CD4 cell count <200 vs greater than or equal to 2
00/mm(3); HIV-I RNA >55,000 vs less than or equal to 55,000 copies/mL) was
assessed by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis.
Results: Data were collected from 478 patients. The scores from the PCS-12
were able to discriminate between groups of patients stratified by disease
severity based on CD4 cell count (P < 0.001) and HIV-I RNA copies/mL (P < 0
.01). MCS-12 scores did not discriminate between disease-severity groups.
Conclusions: Although the SF-12 is a brief generic measure of HRQOL, these
findings provide further evidence of the validity of the SF-12 and suggest
that it may be a practical way to monitor health status from the perspectiv
e of the HIV-infected patient.