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Reliability and Validity of the Arabic Version of the SF-36 Health Survey Questionnaire in Population of Khat Chewers—Jazan Region-Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

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An Erratum to this article was published on 28 December 2013

Abstract

The SF-36 questionnaire is considered to be one of the most important measures in health economics of health status and quality of life. However, this questionnaire has not yet been used in khat-related studies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We aim to assess the reliability and validity of the SF-36 questionnaire on khat chewers in the Jazan region of Saudi Arabia. A total of 450 khat chewers were selected to answer this questionnaire from March 2nd to April 30th, 2012. We first report descriptive and correlation analyses of the data. Then using a construct validity analysis, we uncover the underlying structure of the SF-36 questionnaire. Finally, Cronbach’s alpha and intraclass correlation coefficient analyses were performed to assess the internal consistency of the questionnaire. For the demographic variables, we found age to be negatively associated with SF-36 scales (p ≤ 0.05), whereas education was positively associated (p ≤ 0.05). Importantly, we observed that khat has a negative impact on the quality of life of its users; therefore, intervention measures are needed to solve this problem. The principal component factor analysis of the construct validity confirmed the presence of eight factors in the SF-36, with some of the subscale components remaining as independent factors. Finally, the internal consistency for this questionnaire was high (α 0.72–0.90) across the eight subscales. The above results suggest that the SF-36 questionnaire is a useful scale to measure the quality of life of khat consumers. This study has potential implications in shaping healthcare policy, particularly in evaluating the economic burden of khat consumption and calculating ‘years of life lost’ and ‘years lived with disability’.

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Acknowledgments

This study was fully funded by the Substance Abuse Research Centre (SARC) Jazan University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Project number SARC # 1007). The authors would also like to thank all the research assistants who collected and entered data and the participants who fill in the study questionnaire.

Competing interests

The author (s) declare that they have no competing interests.

Author’s contributions

KA is the principle investigator of the project, carried out data analysis, interpretation of the results and wrote the manuscript. UY participated in the design of research protocol, performed data entry and statistical analysis, and wrote the manuscript. ME conducted data collection and analysis. RE performed data management and critically edited the manuscript. SAM performed data management and critically edited the manuscript. This final manuscript was read and approved by all authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Research Center, Jazan University, Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Kamaludin Ahmed Sheikh & Umar Yagoub

  2. Substance Abuse Research Center, Jazan University, Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Maged Elsatouhy & Rashad Al Sanosi

  3. Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Malaysia (UKM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Sakhaudin Ahmed Mohamud

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  1. Kamaludin Ahmed Sheikh
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  2. Umar Yagoub
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  3. Maged Elsatouhy
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  4. Rashad Al Sanosi
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  5. Sakhaudin Ahmed Mohamud
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Correspondence to Kamaludin Ahmed Sheikh.

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Sheikh, K.A., Yagoub, U., Elsatouhy, M. et al. Reliability and Validity of the Arabic Version of the SF-36 Health Survey Questionnaire in Population of Khat Chewers—Jazan Region-Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Applied Research Quality Life 10, 1–13 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-013-9291-1

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