Health status: patient and physician judgments

Patients at a rehabilitation center in Derbyshire, England, were asked to assess their own functional abilities at admission and again at discharge, using an 82-item questionnaire concerning 12 areas of daily living. Questionnaire responses were correlated with results of physical examinations, assessments by center personnel, and assessments of capacity for specific body movements. The highest correlations were observed in areas that related most directly to physical movements and to dressing and toileting. The results suggest that self-assessment of health status using this questionnaire may provide a viable alternative to judgments made by trained assessors.