Health and Quality of Life Outcomes BioMed Central Research Open Access Quality of Life in rural and urban populations in Lebanon using SF-36 Health Survey Ibtissam Sabbah1, Nabil Drouby2, Sanaa Sabbah3, Nathalie Retel-Rude1 and Mariette Mercier*1 Address: 1Department of Biostatistics, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Besançon, France, 2Department of Nephrology, University Hospital, Saîda, Lebanon and 3Center of Methodology and Technology of the Information, Franche Comté University, Besançon, France Email: Ibtissam Sabbah - nsdroubi@; Nabil Drouby - nsdroubi@; Sanaa Sabbah - nsdroubi@; Nathalie Retel-Rude - ; Mariette Mercier* - * Corresponding author Published: 06 August 2003 Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2003, 1:30 This article is. | BioMed Central Health and Quality of Life Outcomes Research Open Access Quality of Life in rural and urban populations in Lebanon using SF-36 Health Survey Ibtissam Sabbah1 Nabil Drouby2 Sanaa Sabbah3 Nathalie Retel-Rude1 and Mariette Mercier 1 Address Department of Biostatistics Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy Besanẹon France 2Department of Nephrology University Hospital Saida Lebanon and 3Center of Methodology and Technology of the Information Franche Comté University Besanẹon France Email Ibtissam Sabbah - nsdroubi@ Nabil Drouby- nsdroubi@ Sanaa Sabbah - nsdroubi@ Nathalie Retel-Rude - Mariette Mercier - Corresponding author Published 06 August 2003 Received 24 April 2003 Accepted 06 August 2003 Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2003 1 30 This article is available from http content 1 1 30 2003 Sabbah et al licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose provided this notice is preserved along with the article s original URL. Abstract Background Measuring health status in a population is important for the evaluation of interventions and the prediction of health and social care needs. Quality of life QoL studies are an essential complement to medical evaluation but most of the tools available in this area are in English. In order to evaluated QoL in rural and urban areas in Lebanon the short form 36 health survey SF-36 was adapted into Arabic. Methods SF-36 was administered in a cross-sectional study to collect sociodemographic and environmental variables as well as self reported morbidity. We analysed a representative sample containing 1632 subjects from whom we randomly picked 524 subjects aged 14 years and over. The translation cultural adaptation and validation of the SF-36 followed the International Quality of Life Assessment methodology. .
