Uncovering supplementary information from questionnaire inquiry on physical ability with the aim to develop psycho-educational intervention: An example of a study using the SF-36 questionnaire among convalescents after acute pancreatitis

Purpose: The aim of this paper was to complete a series of our own reports on health-related outcomes of rehabilitation following successful clinical therapy in Poland, based on data from a questionnaire survey using the SF-36 questionnaire, on a group of N = 142 participants hospitalized for acute pancreatitis at General Surgery in the Jagiellonian University of Krakow from 2000 to 2006. Material and methods: The data from the questionnaire survey were used to estimate two auxiliary individual attributes of the survey participants: the predictable ability to accept (PAA) any fixed ordering of scale items; and the inclination to avoid extreme scores (AES). Results: The participants of the study differed significantly with respect to their individual PF AES, and PAA scores, N=48 persons didn’t agree with the standard ordering of PF items of SF-36, N=30 persons agreed with any possible ordering. Conclusions: The findings of this study have some practical worth: first, in case of a need to reveal the patient's true ordering of the questionnaire items, it can be concluded that the persons with a great predictable ability to accept any ordering should be examined once more with some special technique. It seems to be sensible that patients with a quite different inclination to avoid extreme scores need a somewhat distinct style of motivation for healthy behavior.