Comparison of the short-form survey 12 and the MacNew heart disease health-related quality of life survey among patients with cardiac disease

BACKGROUND: Health-related quality of life (HRQL) is an important outcome, especially for chronic diseases with no cure such as cardiovascular diseases. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the comparability of 2 HRQL instruments, the Short Form-12 (SF-12) survey and the MacNew Heart Disease HRQL survey (MacNew) in patients with cardiac diseases. METHODS: A nonexperimental cross-sectional study was conducted in a lipid clinic in the Houston metropolitan area. Patients with a prior cardiac disease were requested to complete the SF-12 and the MacNew scales while waiting to see the physician during their regular clinic visit. Cronbach's alpha values were estimated to evaluate internal consistency. Spearman's correlation was performed to examine the correlation between the SF-12 and the MacNew scale domains. RESULTS: A total of 118 patients were enrolled in this study. High Cronbach's a (from 0.89 to 0.94) were observed from all component scores in the MacNew scales. Physical component scores from the SF-12 and from the MacNew were highly correlated (r = 0.74; p < 0.001), as were the mental component score from the SF-12 and the emotional component score from the MacNew (r = 0.68; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The SF-12 and the MacNew appeared to be strongly correlated to each other for predicting a patient's HRQL in patients with a cardiac disease.