Measuring the health status burden in hemodialysis patients using the SF-36® health survey.

Purpose: The SF-36, a generic measure of 8 domains of health-related quality of life (HRQOL), has been widely used to examine HRQOL of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD). The current study synthesizes existing literature to examine which SF-36 domains capture the largest burden in this patient population.

Methods: A literature search of published studies that presented descriptive statistics for baseline SF-36 scale scores from HD patients was conducted.

The minimally important difference of the Asthma Control Test.

Background: The Asthma Control Test (ACT) has been well validated, but a minimally important difference (MID) has not been established.

Objective: We sought to identify an MID for the ACT.

Methods: Data come from 4 independent samples of adult asthmatic patients.