Objective: To explore the effect of SF-36 scale being applied in different countries under different culture and to describe the quality of life of pulmonary tuberculosis patients in China and Thailand.
Methods: SF-36 scale was applied to pulmonary tuberculosis patients in both countries using face to face interview.
Results: Many coefficients among domains were greater than 0.5 when quality of life of tuberculosis patient in both countries was measured. Cronbach's coefficient of all domains were greater than 0.7 for tuberculosis patients in China while cronbach's Coefficient of most domains were equal or greater than 0.7 for tuberculosis patients in Thailand except for vitality and social domains. The score of social domain for patients in Thailand was greater than that of China.
Conclusion: Structure validity was not good for tuberculosis patients in both countries since there were some items overlapped in different domains. However, the reliability was good for measuring quality of life of tuberculosis patients both in China and in Thailand.