Sickness Impact Profile (SIP)
What It Measures
The Sickness Impact Profile asks what illness has actually changed about how a person behaves. Not how they feel about their health, but what they do differently — and the items are written as plain first-person statements a person either endorses or leaves blank.
One hundred and thirty-six statements cover twelve categories. Three make up the physical dimension: ambulation, mobility, and body care and movement. Four make up the psychosocial dimension: communication, alertness behaviour, emotional behaviour, and social interaction. Five stand independently: sleep and rest, eating, work, home management, and recreation and pastimes. Items are weighted by severity, and results are expressed as a percentage of dysfunction.
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: The SIP is a trademarked instrument with a User's Manual and Interpretation Guide published by Johns Hopkins, and is catalogued by the Mapi Research Trust.
Learn More: The behavioural framing is the design principle worth knowing. Items describe observable behavior rather than feelings or symptoms, which means a SIP score can change even when the underlying disease has not — and that is intentional. It makes the SIP a measure of impact rather than of illness severity, and allows comparison across very different conditions.
