Reliability, validity, and scoring of the Health Status Questionnaire-12 version 2.0

Measuring health status as an indicator of individual, population, and community health is critical in reducing health disparities in populations. The purpose of this study was to test the psychometric properties of the Health Status Questionnaire-12 (HSQ-12) Version 2.0, a brief self-reported health status instrument available within the public domain, in a low-income sample (N = 7,793). The internal consistency reliability was .88. Initial and confirmatory factor analysis revealed two factors explaining 67% of the variance, interpreted as super scales of physical and mental health. Second order factor analysis isolated one factor explaining 82% of the variance, interpreted as a total health status. Comparison of subjects with and without disabilities using t tests and the Mann-Whitney U Test showed that the scale, super scale, and total scale scores differentiated significantly. The HSQ-12 is a reliable, valid, and low-cost measure of health status.