A community-based validation study of the short-form 36 version 2 Philippines (Tagalog) in two cities in the Philippines

PLoS One. 2013 Dec 26;8(12):e83794. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0083794. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the validity and reliability of the Philippines (Tagalog) Short Form 36 Health Survey version 2 (SF-36v2(®)) standard questionnaire among Filipinos residing in two cities.

Study design and setting: The official Philippines (Tagalog) SF-36v2 standard (4-week recall) version was pretested on 30 participants followed by formal and informal cognitive debriefing. To obtain the feedback on translation by bilingual respondents, each SF-36v2 question was stated first in English followed by Tagalog. No revisions to the original questionnaire were needed except that participants thought it was appropriate to incorporate "po" in the instructions to make it more polite. Face-to-face interviews of 562 participants aged 20-50 years living in two barangays (villages) in the highly urbanized city of Makati City (Metro Manila) and in urban and rural barangays in Tanauan City (province of Batangas) were subsequently conducted. Content validity, item level validity, reliability and factor structure of the SF-36v2 (Tagalog) were examined.

Results: Content validity of the SF-36v2 was assessed to be adequate for assessing health status among Filipinos. Item means of Philippines (Tagalog) SF-36v2 were similar with comparable scales in the US English, Singapore (English and Chinese) and Thai SF-36 version 1. Item-scale correlation exceeded 0.4 for all items except the bathing item in PF (correlation: 0.31). In exploratory factor analysis, the US two-component model was supported. However, in confirmatory factor analysis, the Japanese three-component model fit the Tagalog data better than the US two-component model.

Conclusions: The Philippines (Tagalog) SF-36v2 is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring health status among residents of Makati City (Metro Manila) and Tanauan City (Province of Batangas).

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Validation Study

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Cities / statistics & numerical data*
  • Cognition
  • Emotions
  • Female
  • Health Surveys / methods*
  • Humans
  • Language
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Philippines
  • Psychometrics
  • Residence Characteristics / statistics & numerical data*
  • Rural Population / statistics & numerical data
  • Statistics as Topic
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

The authors would like to acknowledge seed funding from Pfizer Pte Ltd Investigator Initiated Grant for the LIFECARE study which began in 2007. Pfizer Pte Ltd and Pfizer Philippine had no input on study design, execution, analysis, interpretation and writing of the manuscript. The authors would also like to acknowledge their academic sponsors. The LIFECARE Philippines study team raised additional funds from government agencies (Department of Health, Philippine Council for Health Research and Development) and professional medical associations in the Philippines (Diabetes Philippines, Philippine Society of Hypertension, and the Philippine Lipid and Atherosclerosis Society). The authors would also like to acknowledge the in-kind contribution of University of the Philippines Manila for providing office space and utilities.