Comparison of SF‐36 and QLS‐AA in Measuring Quality of Life in Patients With Aplastic Anemia: A Cross‐Sectional Study

Introduction The Quality of Life Scale for Patients with Aplastic Anemia (QLS‐AA), a self‐reporting tool, assesses the quality of life among patients with aplastic anemia (AA). This study aimed to compare the QLS‐AA with the commonly used 36‐item Short Form Health Survey (SF‐36) questionnaire. Methods In this cross‐sectional study, we administered the SF‐36 and QLS‐AA to 306 patients with AA in two hospitals in China. Results The ceiling and floor effects of SF‐36 (range 0%–38.89% and 0%–56.54%, respectively) were higher than those of QLS‐AA (range 0.65%–1.31% and 0%, respectively). The Cronbach’s α coefficients for SF‐36 ranged from 0.622 to 0.911, with principal component analysis (PCA) identifying two factors accounting for 62.481% of the variance. For QLS‐AA, Cronbach’s α coefficients ranged from 0.793 to 0.932, and PCA revealed a single factor explaining 79.815% of the variance. There was a significant positive correlation between two scales ( r = 0.743; p < 0.001). Both scales had discriminant validity in disease duration, work/study situation, economic dependence, blood transfusion situation, and degree of anemia. In addition, the QLS‐AA showed sensitivity to the marital status. Conclusions Both the SF‐36 and the QLS‐AA are viable instruments for assessing the QoL in patients with AA. Nevertheless, the QLS‐AA exhibited superior performance in psychometric testing. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: ChiCTR2100047575