2.4. Data collection and outcome measures
Both groups were assessed at baseline, at the 4-week (post invention) and again at the 8-week (follow-up). The outcome measures included the HRQOL and disability, which were assessed by face-to-face interview with two developed questionnaires.
2.4.1. HRQOL
The T-SF36 was used to determine the generic HRQOL in this study. The T-SF36 is a 36-item questionnaire that measure eight parameters of health: ten questions related to physical functioning, four questions related to role limitation in physical status, two questions related to body pain, five questions related to GH
perception, four questions related to vitality, two questions related to social functioning, three questions related to role limitations in emotional status and five questions related to mental health. The first four items consisted of a physical component summary (PCS) score, and the last four items consisted of a mental component summary (MCS) score. Scoreswere calculated based on the formula
in themanual of the SF-36 Health SurveyManual and Interpretation Guide (Ware et al., 1993). The reliability (median reliability coefficient 0.70 for all subscales) for the T-SF36 has been well established (Lu et al., 2003; Tseng et al., 2003).