Quality of life of Australian chronically-ill adults: patient and practice characteristics matter

Table 2 Scores and rotated factor loadings for items SF-12 scales

Scale	Desciption of items	Lowest possible score % (No.)	Highest possible score % (No.)	Mean (SD)	Factor structure
					Factor 1	Factor 2
PF*	Health limited in moderate activities	17.1 (1294)	48.0 (3638)	2.31 (0.74)	0.85	0.14
PF*	Health limit climbing stairs	25.5 (1916)	35.8 (2689)	2.10 (0.78)	0.82	0.09
RP	Accomplished less because of physical health	6.9 (525)	31.0 (2352)	3.57 (1.25)	0.84	0.30
RP	Limited in the kind of work	7.3 (551)	33.3 (2517)	3.62 (1.26)	0.87	0.27
BP	Pain interfered with activities	3.7(279)	35.6(2701)	3.74 (1.21)	0.71	0.30
GH	Health in general	5.4(411)	3.0(231)	3.13 (1.04)	0.67	0.33
MH	Felt calm and peaceful	3.5 (262)	10.5 (793)	3.50 (0.95)	0.10	0.78
MH	Felt downhearted and depressed	2.0 (151)	36.7 (2782)	3.93 (1.03)	0.07	0.83
RE	Accomplished less due to emotional problems	3.7 (277)	45.5 (3450)	3.97 (1.15)	0.39	0.78
RE	Did work less careful than usual due to emotional problems	3.0 (228)	48.8 (3691)	4.07 (1.10)	0.40	0.73
SF	Emotional problems/physical health interfered with social activities	3.0(229)	50.0 (3797)	4.04 (1.14)	0.46	0.68
VT	Lot of energy	9.4 (711)	4.2 (317)	3.00 (1.03)	0.55	0.49

Extraction method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. Rotation converged in 3 iterations.
*Two items of PF are three point scale (from 1 to 3) and all the other items are five point scale (from 1 to 5).
Figures for 12 items do not include missing values which range from 1.1% to 1.6% except for the question about "climbing stars" with 2.1% missing values.
Higher loadings of each item on a factor are indicated in bold text.

ISSN: 1477-7525