Short Form-12 Health Survey

What it measures

A brief, widely used measure of health-related quality of life capturing physical and mental health functioning. Derived from the SF-36 to minimise respondent burden. Used extensively in clinical trials, epidemiology, and health services research. Validated in hundreds of disease populations.

Response format

Mixed response formats; scored to produce Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS) T-scores (population mean=50, SD=10)

Representative items

• In general, would you say your health is: Excellent / Very good / Good / Fair / Poor
• Does your health now limit you in moderate activities such as moving a table, pushing a vacuum cleaner?
• Have you accomplished less than you would like due to physical health problems?
• How much did pain interfere with your normal work in the past 4 weeks?
• Have you felt downhearted and low in the past 4 weeks?

This is a licensed instrument — representative items are shown for reference only. Obtain the original scale materials from the publisher before use in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Requires licence from Optum/QualityMetric. PCS and MCS T-scores derived using norm-based scoring algorithms. T-scores <40 indicate clinically significant impairment. The SF-36 (full version) provides eight subscale scores and is preferred when detailed health profiling is needed.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Ware, J.E., Kosinski, M., & Keller, S.D. (1996). A 12-item short-form health survey: Construction of scales and preliminary tests of reliability and validity. Medical Care, 34(3), 220–233.

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