Background: Shoulder 36 (ver1.3) (Sh36) is a region-specific self-administered questionnaire published by Japan Shoulder society last year. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of Sh36.
Methods: Data was collected from 101 shoulders of 60 patients(6 females and 54 males) with shoulder disorders. The average age was 33.7 years(15 ∼ 88 years). Sh36, the DASH-JSSH version (DASH), and JOA score were collected simultaneously. Internal consistency was assessed by Cronbach's α coefficient. Factor analysis was conducted to confirm the unidimensionality of the 6 domains of Sh36. Reliability was evaluated by correlation and coefficient among Sh36, DASH and JOA score.
Results: The Cronbach's α coefficient for the 6 domains in the Sh36 were 0.905.
The first factor of Sh36 had an eigenvalue of 4.84, which explained the 81% total variance of the Sh36. The unidimensionality of the Sh36 was found to be strong as the result of the low eigenvalue of the second factor (0.54). The correlations between each domain of Sh36 and the DASH were strong (-0.844 ∼ -0.645).The correlations between each domain of Sh36 and JOA score were moderate (0.569 ∼ 0.708).
Conclusion: Sh36 was confirmed as high reliability and high validity in our cases. Evidenced based medicine can be promoted using Sh36, which is a Japanese original self-assessment scoring instrument.
