Quality of life before admission to the intensive care unit.

Objective: To examine the reliability of the SF-36 general health questionnaire when used to evaluate the health status of critically ill patients before admission to intensive care and to measure their health-related quality of life prior to admission and its relation to severity of illness and length of stay in the intensive care unit.

Methods: Prospective cohort study conducted in the intensive care unit of a public teaching hospital. Over three months, communicative and oriented patients were interviewed within the first 72 hours of intensive care unit admission; 91 individuals participated.