BioPsychoSocial Assessment Tools for the Elderly - Assessment Summary Sheet Test: Self-Evaluation of Life Function (SELF) Scale Year: 1984 Domain: Biological, Psychological, Social Assessment Tool Category: General Health Variations/Translations: A 16-item short form version was developed for administration via telephone interview. Setting: Home Method of Delivery: Self-administered Description: The SELF Scale was designed to comprehensively evaluate health of persons over 60, by measuring physical, psychological, and social aspects of health. The SELF Scale is comprised of 54 items, loaded on 6 factors: activities of daily living and physical disability, symptoms of aging, self-esteem, social satisfaction, depression, and personal control. There are additional questions concerning diagnoses, sick days, medications, and pain. Questions concern either current state of health of health over the past month (McDowell & Newell, 1996). Scoring/Interpretation: All questions except those concerning diagnoses and medications have a 4 point response scale. Items are weighted and item scores are then added to generate factor scores. Factor scores are used to generate section scores, which are used in analysis (McDowell & Newell, 1996). A higher score indicates a poorer level of health (Linn & Linn, 1984). Time to Administer: 15 minutes Availability: Scale can be found in original publication by Linn and Linn (1984). Software: N/A Website: N/A Quantitative/Qualitative: Quantitative Validity (Quantitative): The SELF Scale was tested for sensitivity to change in four groups: institutionalized patients, mental health outpatients, patients receiving counselling, and community residents (Linn & Linn, 1984). Retesting occurred after a period of three months. Results showed that there was significant discrimination between groups, in the expected direction (p < 0.001). Predictive validity was also assessed, and results showed that factor scores were able to predict the number of weeks in institutions (R2 = 0.37) and number of physician visits (R2 = 0.28) (Linn & Linn, 1984). Reliability (Quantitative): Test-retest intraclass correlations for individual items and section scores ranged from moderate to high (0.36-0.99 for individual items; 0.59-0.96 for sections) (McDowell & Newell, 1996). References: Haywood, K.L., Garratt, A.M., Fitzpatrick, R. (2005). Older people specific health status and quality of life: a structured review of self-assessed instruments. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 11(4), 315-327. Linn, M.W., & Linn, B.S. (1984). Self-Evaluation of Life Function (SELF) Scale: A short, comprehensive self-report of health for elderly adults. Journal of Gerontology, 39(5), 603-612. McDowell, I., & Newell, C. (1996). Measuring Health: A Guide to Rating Scales and Questionnaires (2nd ed). New York: Oxford University Press. Comments: Further analysis of validity and reliability for the SELF Scale needs to be conducted (Haywood, Garratt, & Fitzpatrick, 2005).