36-Short Form Health Survey (SF-36)
What It Measures
The 36-Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) is a self-report tool. It measures physical health, mental well-being, and daily quality of life. The 36 questions check eight areas. These include body pain, daily movement, energy, mood, and social life. Occupational therapy, physical therapy, and mental health clinicians use these scores. They help clinicians see how health affects daily life, track gains, and plan care goals.
Health issues can limit work tasks, daily movement, and social life. Because of this, the survey is useful in many care settings. These include hospitals, rehab units, clinics, mental health centers, nursing homes, home health care, community programs, and telehealth.
Clinicians use this survey with adults and seniors. It supports clients living with cancer, Parkinson's disease, stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury, or general health needs.
The 36-Short Form Health Survey is cataloged in public health databases as the RAND 36-Item Health Survey.
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: The RAND-36 version of the survey is public domain and free to use without licensing fees. Commercial variants of the SF-36 (such as SF-36v2) are copyrighted by Optum / QualityMetric and require a license for clinical or digital platform use.
