The University of Sheffield Health Economics and Decision
Science   A brief overview:  The SF-36 has become the most
widely used measure of general health in clinical studies
throughout the world. It currently generates eight dimension
scores and two summary scores for physical and mental health.
Whilst such scores provide an excellent means for judging the
effectiveness of health care interventions, they have only a
limited application in economic evaluation because they are not
based on preferences.  The SF-6D provides a means for using the
SF-36 and SF-12 in economic evaluation by estimating a
preference-based single index measure for health from these data
using general population values. The SF-6D allows the analyst to
obtain quality adjusted life years (QALYs) from the SF-36 for
use in cost utility analysis.  What is the SF-6D?  The SF-6D is
a classification for describing health derived from a selection
of SF-36 items. It is composed of six multi-level dimensions.
Any patient who completes the SF-36 or