Development and Validation of a Novel Generic Health-related Quality of Life Instrument With 20 Items (HINT-20)

OBJECTIVES: Few attempts have been made to develop a generic health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instrument and to examine its validity and reliability in Korea. We aimed to do this in our present study. METHODS: After a literature review of existing generic HRQoL instruments, a focus group discussion, in-depth interviews, and expert consultations, we selected 30 tentative items for a new HRQoL measure. These items were evaluated by assessing their ceiling effects, difficulty, and redundancy in the first survey. To validate the HRQoL instrument that was developed, known-groups validity and convergent/discriminant validity were evaluated and its test-retest reliability was examined in the second survey. RESULTS: Of the 30 items originally assessed for the HRQoL instrument, four were excluded due to high ceiling effects and six were removed due to redundancy. We ultimately developed a HRQoL instrument with a reduced number of 20 items, known as the Health-related Quality of Life Instrument with 20 items (HINT-20), incorporating physical, mental, social, and positive health dimensions. The results of the HINT-20 for known-groups validity were poorer in women, the elderly, and those with a low income. For convergent/discriminant validity, the correlation coefficients of items (except vitality) in the physical health dimension with the physical component summary of the Short Form 36 version 2 (SF-36v2) were generally higher than the correlations of those items with the mental component summary of the SF-36v2, and vice versa. Regarding test-retest reliability, the intraclass correlation coefficient of the total HINT-20 score was 0.813 (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: A novel generic HRQoL instrument, the HINT-20, was developed for the Korean general population and showed acceptable validity and reliability.