The Short Health Scale: A Valid and Reliable Quality-of-Life Scale for Mainland Chinese Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

BACKGROUND: The aim of our study was to translate and validate the mainland Chinese version of the short health scale (SHS), a disease-specific quality-of-life (QoL) scale for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). METHODS: The SHS was translated and validated according to the standard process: a translation and back-translation procedure and a reliability and validation study. Patients with IBD were enrolled, and their QoL was assessed using the SHS, the short inflammatory bowel disease questionnaire (SIBDQ), and the Bristol stool form scale. Reliability (internal consistency reliability, split-half reliability, and test–retest reliability) and validity analyses were performed to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of the SHS. The impacts of different severity of major symptoms on QoL were analyzed by comparing the scores of SHS. RESULTS: A total of 112 patients with IBD (69 with ulcerative colitis and 43 with Crohn's disease) completed the mainland Chinese version of the SHS, and 34 patients completed the SHS a second time within one to two weeks. Cronbach's alpha value of the SHS was 0.90, and its split-half coefficient was 0.83. Intraclass correlation coefficients of the four items ranged from 0.52 to 0.72. All four items of the SHS were significantly associated with the corresponding domains of the SIBDQ, with correlation coefficients ranging from −0.52 to −0.69 (p < 0.001). The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good fit of the one-factor model, with comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.878, normed fit index (NFI) = 0.874, incremental fit index (IFI) = 0.880, and goodness of fit index (GFI) = 0.842. The patients with severe symptoms had higher scores in the SHS than those with no or mild symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The SHS was simple and quick to be used. The SHS had good validity and reliability and was suitable for evaluating the QoL of patients with IBD in mainland China.