[SF-36 and the development of new assessment tools for quality of life]

The use of assessment tools for quality of life has allowed the incorporation of the views of patients in health decision-making. This article presents the characteristics and changes experienced by one of the most used questionnaires of quality of life at present the Short Form 36-item Health Survey SF-36 . We also discuss the issues related to the construction properties and applications of this measuring tool and other derived measures as the SF-12 the SF-8 the Dynamic Health Assessment DYNHA and the SF-6D. We emphasize the use of the SF-36 for assessing the effectiveness of interventions in health the SF-12 for the tracking of health disorders the SF-8 for the monitoring of population health the DYNHA for individualized evaluations in clinical practice and the SF-6D for economic analysis in health. Information on the versions validated for Portuguese language and the permission to use the questionnaires are provided.