A review of generic health status measures in patients with low back pain.

Generic health status measures are designed to broadly assess the concepts of health, disability, and quality of life. Although generic health status measures are often less responsive to changes in specific conditions than disease-specific instruments, they are important for broad comparisons of the relative impact of different conditions or treatments on the health of the population. The short-form instruments developed from the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS), the MOS SF-36 and SF-12, have been widely used in the evaluation of low back pain. These instruments are discussed in depth elsewhere in this Focus Issue. However, numerous other generic health status measures have been developed, and many of them have been evaluated in patients with back pain. In this article, the properties of four of these other generic health status measures (the Sickness Impact Profile [SIP], the Nottingham Health Profile [NHP], the Duke Health Profile [DUKE], and the COOP/WONCA charts, a revised and shortened version of the original charts developed by the Dartmouth Primary Care Cooperative Information Project [COOP] which was modified by the World Organization of National Colleges, Academies and Academic Associations of General Practitioners and Family Physicians [WONCA]) are evaluated and compared with the MOS measures, when applicable.