QL-06 RELIABILITY OF THE SF-36 QUESTIONNAIRE FOR ASSESSMENT OF HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE IN NEUROSURGICAL BRAIN TUMOR PATIENTS

• Published in: Neuro-oncology (Charlottesville, Va.) Va.), 2014-11, Vol.16 (suppl 5), p.v179-v179
• Main Authors: Bunevicius, A., Tamasauskas, S., Deltuva, V. P., Tamasauskas, A., Bunevicius, R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1522-8517; 1523-5866
• DOI: 10.1093/neuonc/nou269.6

BACKGROUND: Brain tumor is often a devastating disease associated with significant impairment of health-related quality of life (HRQoL). We evaluated reliability of the SF-36 questionnaire for assessment of HRQoL in neurosurgical brain tumor patients. METHODS: Consecutive patients admitted for primary brain tumor surgery were considered for this prospective study. On admission, patients were evaluated for HRQoL (SF-36 scale), functional status (Barthel index or BI) and depressive symptom severity (Beck depression inventory-II or BDI-II). RESULTS: Two-hundred and fourteen patients (70% women and 30% men; mean age 55.8 plus or minus 14.4 years) completed the study. The most common brain tumor diagnoses were meningioma (40%), high-grade glioma (18%) and pituitary adenoma (13%). The lowest scores were on the SF-36 General health (48.3 plus or minus 20.0), Role limitations due to physical problems (53.2 plus or minus 42.5) and Energy/vitality (53.7 plus or minus 21.5) subscales. Internal consistency of individual SF-36 subscales was acceptable for all but Social functioning subscale of the SF-36 questionnaire with Cronbach's coefficients alpha ranging from 0.92 for Physical functioning subscale to 0.69 for General health subscale of the SF-36. There was a moderate-to-strong correlation of the Role limitations due to emotional problems, Energy/vitality and Emotional well-being SF-36 subscales with the BDI-II scores (Pearson's correlation coefficients r range from -0.30 to -0.66; p-values