 "...[this book] brings together widely scattered information on health measurement techniques; a practical reference guide by Ian McDowell ... it helps readers choose, administer, and score available questionnaires & rating scales. Reviewing 50 measurement instruments, it describes their purpose and conceptual basis, reliability and validity, and shows a copy of the scale." see free PDF To browse other articles on a range of HSL topics, see the wiki index.
Introduction
See also Information technology topics, Surveys - an introduction to online tools & Teaching health library users
- This guide aims to list starting points for health-related research involving instruments, measures, scales and tests.
- Health-related measures and scales are standardized tools used for a number of purposes in evaluating health, illness, quality of life and a range of behaviours and attitudes.
- Typically, instruments are used to gauge the progress in reaching population health goals, assessing health disparities across segments of the population, and measuring effectiveness of health care interventions for a number of age-related diseases.
- Health measurement instruments are defined by the Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HaPI) database as questionnaires, psychological tests, health status indicators, genetic tests, interview schedules, checklists, index measures, coding schemes/ manuals, inventories, rating scales, projective techniques, and vignettes/scenarios.
Major websites
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Other guides to tests
Key resources
- publishes the Mental Measurements Yearbook and Tests in Print series
- 25,000 tests and other measurement devices
- extensive list of scales and PubMed search queries for scales
- many practical surveys and tools for improving quality of care.
Databases at UBC Library
Monographs at UBC Library
Assessment, measures, questionnaires examples
Relevant subject headings
- Health surveys
- Social surveys
- Health status indicators—Measurement.
- Health Status Indicators
- Pain Measurement
- Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
- Psychological Tests
- Questionnaires
Other rating scales
Health-related quality of life search tips
- Sensitivity versus specificity - health-related QoL is a specific concept in health technology assessment; it involves measurement, using reliable and validated methods, of functional, social and emotional aspects of health. MeSH and EMTREE headings define quality of life in broad, general terms. Some searches may therefore retrieve a large number of irrelevant references. As more instruments are validated, modified and adapted they are referred to by various abbreviated titles such as: SF-36, SF36, Short-form 36, Shortform 36, MOS 36 & RAND 36. There is an abridged form of the SF-36, the SF-12 (or SF12, Short-Form-12, etc.); texts are useful in identifying freetext variations of relevant terms
Commercial distributors
- "...global leader in clinical assessment; ability, achievement, personality, behaviour, speech and language, occupational therapy, and career interests; Wechsler family of assessments, MMPI® tests, Beck inventories, Millon™ inventories, PPVT™-4, Bayley-III® Scales of Infant and Toddler Development®, BASC™ family of products, Kaufman family of assessments, etc..."
Relevant research
- Dumas J, Tullis T. Annotated bibliography of rating scale literature. Extensive list of references on rating scales and questionnaires; 2009.
- Dumas J. Rating scales: what the research says. Boston Usability Professionals' Association Mini-UPA Conference; 2009.
- Hjermstad MJ, European Palliative Care Research Collaborative (EPCRC). Studies comparing numerical rating scales, verbal rating scales and visual analogue scales for assessment of pain intensity in adults: a systematic literature review. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2011;41(6):1073-93.
- Keszei AP, Novak M, Streiner DL. Introduction to health measurement scales. J Psychosom Res. 2010;68(4):319-23.
- Kroenke K, Spitzer RL. The Patient Health Questionnaire Somatic, Anxiety and Depressive Symptom scales: a systematic review. Gen Hosp Psych. 2010;32(4):345-59.
- Myers K, Winters NC. Ten-year review of rating scales: overview of scale functioning, psychometric properties, and selection. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psych. 2002;41(2):114-22.
- Oude Voshaar MA, ten Klooster PM. Measurement properties of physical function scales validated for use in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a systematic review of the literature. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2011;9:99.
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