A methodological framework for assessing health indices Journal Articles

abstract

• Tests or measures in clinical medicine or the social sciences can be used for three purposes: discriminating between subjects, predicting either prognosis or the results of some other test, and evaluating change over time. The choices made at each stage of constructing a quality of life index will differ depending on the purpose of the instrument. We explore the implications of index purpose for each stage of instrument development: selection of the item pool, item scaling, item reduction, determination of reliability, of validity, and of responsiveness. At many of these stages, not only are the requirements for discriminative, predictive, and evaluative instruments not complementary, they are actually competing. Attention to instrument purpose will clarify the choices both for those developing quality of life measures and for those selecting an appropriate instrument for clinical studies.

authors

• Kirshner, Bram
• Guyatt, Gordon

status

• published 

publication date

• January 1985

has subject area

• 01 Mathematical Sciences (FoR)
• 11 Medical and Health Sciences (FoR)
• Data Collection (MeSH)
• Epidemiology (Science Metrix)
• Health Status Indicators (MeSH)
• Health Surveys (MeSH)
• Humans (MeSH)
• Methods (MeSH)
• Quality of Life (MeSH)
• Surveys and Questionnaires (MeSH)

published in

• Journal of Clinical Epidemiology  Journal

keywords

• Data Collection
• Health Status Indicators
• Health Surveys
• Humans
• Methods
• Quality of Life
• Surveys and Questionnaires

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1016/0021-9681(85)90005-0

PubMed ID

• 3972947

start page

• 27

end page

• 36

volume

• 38

issue

• 1