Agreement of NHP and Sf-36 Social Domains: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Introduction: Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) is an important outcome measure to investigate and monitor patients with chronic diseases. In order to achieve such goal, it is essential to choose an appropriate tool to evaluate the peculiarities of each population. Instruments to investigate HRQoL, NHP and SF-36 are alike in several aspects and are considered by the scientific community as replaceable each other. However, there are doubts regarding the agreement of their social domains. Objective: The present study aim to assess whether the social domains of the NHP and SF-36 correspond when applied in a population with chronic disease. Methods: The present research was made by applying the two instruments to a population with chronic disease. The social domains agreement was evaluated by Pearson correlation, ROC curve, AUC, Youdex Index, and Bland-Altman plot. Results: It was achieve a weak correlation between the two social domais (r = 0.3), confirmed by ROC curve with small AUC (0.416) and Youdex Index around 0.0. The Bland-Altman plot reaffirmed the no agreement between the two subscale by achieving mean difference equal to 29.37 (± 38.51), which made the concordance Interval vary from 106.39 to -47.65. Conclusion: it was concluded that social domains of NHP and SF-36 do not agree to each other. However, reasons for that are not explained and need to be investigated in futures studies. The current research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Bahiana School of Medicine and Public Health under the protocol CAAE 516.42315.5.0000.5544.