Perceived health in three groups of elderly people. A validity study of the Danish version of the Nottingham Health Profile.

The Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) is a measure of physical, emotional and social distress. It was developed in the United Kingdom and has been adapted and translated into Danish. The Danish version of the NHP has been shown to be reliable. In order to establish the validity of the measure it was administered to three groups of people, all over the age of 60, who were expected to differ in health status. These groups consisted of 120 persons attending fitness classes on a regular basis, 64 patients with low back pain and/or pain in the lower extremities referred by their general practitioner for treatment at an out-patient clinic and 72 patients with osteoarthrosis of the hip awaiting hip replacement operation. As predicted, the patients awaiting hip replacement surgery scored higher (indicating greater distress) on all six sections of the measure than did the patients attending the out-patient clinic. Both these groups scored higher on all sections of the NHP than the fitness class members. It is concluded that the Danish version of the NHP has been found valid insofar as it shows expected differences between three groups of elderly people.