Assessment of HRQOL
The Kidney Disease and Quality of Life Short Form version
1.3 (KDQOL-SF, 20) was applied to assess generic
and disease-specific HRQOL. The first part comprised
the Medical Outcome Study, a 36-item Short-Form
Health Survey (SF-36) that measures the generic dimensions
of HRQOL using eight subscales [19]. The physical
summary (PCS) and the mental component summary
sthus et al. BMC Nephrology 2012, 13:78 Page 2 of 9
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2369/13/78
(MCS) were also calculated according to a scoring algorithm
[20]. The kidney disease-specific portion of the
KDQOL-SF consists of 43 items classified into 11 specific
kidney-related scales [21].