Review Article

✍ Scribed by Alan Williams

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 291 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1057-9230
• DOI: 10.1002/hec.4730010407

✦ Synopsis

This book summarises some of the important features of the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS), a large-scale study of patient outcomes in different health care delivery systems in the USA. It is the study from which sprang the 'SF36' as a measure of patient outcome,' and since this measure is now being strongly promoted (as a rival to e.g. the Nottingham Health Profile and QWB) the MOS experience is of more than historical interest, and its methodology deserves close attention. It may also deserve emulation, but this is where the relative sparsity of research funding outside the USA is likely to tell strongly against us, and force us to live off the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table. In this case, however, it is likely to be more substantial fare than mere crumbs that come our way, since the King's Fund has established a network of British users of SF36 to see whether, by pooling their experience with the (Anglicised version of) SF36 it can be adapted, and interpreted, within a British context. Similarly work is underway in mainland Europe and elsewhere and it is therefore well worth while examining its purposes, methods and results in some detail.

The purpose of the MOS was to provide a standardised generic measure of outcome for use in both evaluative studies and population surveys. The claim is that 'The measures documented are comprehensive, reflecting a full range of concerns of patients, and are