Study of Relationship between Self-rated Health and Objective Health in Different Socio-economic Groups of Tehran in 2014
Fatemeh Khalili
Isfahan University of Medical Science, Isfahan, Iran.
Saharnaz Nejat *
Department of Epidemiology, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Kazem Mohammad
Department of Biostatistics, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Kamran Yazdani
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Ghasem Yadegarfar
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The evaluation of health by an individual or self-rated health is a popular international index which is widely practiced for evaluating the individuals’ health in the public health researches and epidemiology. Many studies have revealed that self-rated health is a reliable predictor of mortality, illness, and loss of physical capacity. In addition, it has close correlation with the objective health indexes. The findings of this study have revealed the strong relationship between self-rated health and objective health. As self- rated health can be used as a reliable tool in the evaluation of objective health, this questionnaire can be used as a probable tool of screening the individuals’ health in the society and determining the individuals who need care. Further studies are suggested to be done in other regions for studying the quality of the questionnaire and also the factors affecting the self-rated health.
Keywords: Self-rated health, objective health, world health organization, psychometric analysis, socio- economic condition, validity and reliability