Quality of Life Research - A well-defined and reliable patient-reported outcome instrument for COVID-19 is important for assessing symptom severity and supporting research studies. The InFLUenza...

Quality of Life Research - To evaluate the psychometric properties of common health-related quality-of-life instruments used post stroke and provide recommendations for research and clinical use...

Quality of Life Research - Quality of care for long-term care (LTC) residents with dementia at the end-of-life is often evaluated using standardized instruments that were not developed for or...

Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities - The assessment literature cites several instruments used to assess the skills of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis, but...

Supportive Care in Cancer - Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a common and debilitating consequence of cancer and its treatment. Numerous supportive care interventions have been developed to...

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Background: Identification of psychometrically strong implementation measures could (1) advance researchers’ understanding of how individual characteristics imp...

Background: Identification of psychometrically strong implementation measures could (1) advance researchers’ understanding of how individual characteristics imp...

Valid, meaningful, and reliable adult retrospective measures of violence against children (VAC) are essential for establishing the prevalence, risk factors, and...

A recent COSMIN review found that the Victorian Institute of Sports Assessment–Achilles tendinopathy questionnaire (VISA-A) has flawed construct validity. The objective of the current study was to assess specifically the process of how VISA-A was constructed and validated, and whether the Danish version of VISA-A is a valid patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) for measuring the perceived impact of Achilles tendinopathy. The original item generation strategy for content validity and the process for confirming the scaling properties (construct validity) were examined. In addition, construct validity was evaluated directly using several psychometric methods (Rasch analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and multivariable linear regression) in a cohort of 318 persons with Achilles tendinopathy with symptom duration groups ranging from less than 3 months to more than 1 year of chronicity, and a group of 120 healthy persons. We found that the item generation and item reduction in the original construction of VISA-A was based on literature review and clinician consensus with little or no patient involvement. We determined that 1) VISA-A consists of ambiguous conceptual item themes and thus lacks content validity, 2) there was no thorough investigation of the psychometric properties of the original version of VISA-A, which thus lacks construct validity, and 3) rigorous direct assessment of the psychometric properties of the Danish VISA-A revealed inadequate psychometric properties. In agreement with the COSMIN study, we conclude that when used as a single score, VISA-A is not an adequate scale for measuring self-reported impact of Achilles tendinopathy.

Today, some individuals may be at a disadvantage by experiencing difficulties in using a smartphone or computer to reach specific outcomes (e.g., looking for a job, searching for information on insurances) or in general (e.g., not knowing how to change the settings of an app or website). The aim of this study is to develop and examine the psychometric properties of a new instrument, called the Digital Difficulties Scale (DDS). A multi-phase method was performed to develop the questionnaire in the period from January 2019 to November 2019. The item pool was generated based on a literature review, informal observations and interviews. Then, this item pool was presented both to experts (n = 6) and non-experts (n = 492) to assess content and face validity. In a second stage, construct validity (both exploratory and confirmatory), convergent and divergent validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability of the questionnaire were tested. These analyses were based on a representative sample (n = 1000), and an independent sample for test-retest reliability (n = 44). Twenty-four items were generated and refined during content and face validity assessment. The exploratory factor analysis revealed three factors (Specific Digital Difficulties, General Digital Difficulties, and Worries about Future Digital Difficulties) containing sixteen items, together explaining 73.03% of the observed variance. The confirmatory factor analysis proved adequate model fitness. Both convergent and divergent validity were good, and internal consistency was excellent, with Cronbach’s alphas ranging between .93 and .97. Finally, our instrument demonstrated good test-retest reliability, with interclass correlation coefficients between .73 and .86. Consequently, the DDS can be used both in future research and practice, as it is a valid and reliable instrument to measure who is disadvantaged to fulfill basic needs by experiencing difficulties in using a smartphone or computer.

all stages of the disease. In addition, they often indicate that health care providers insufficiently attend and adapt to their multiple needs. A systematic and patient-centered assessment is needed to address this lack of knowledge and understanding. However, existing quantitative needs assessment questionnaires are limited in terms of psychometric testing. Qualitative measures are time-intensive and difficult to conduct on a large scale, with growing economic pressure. Information about the methodological quality and the characteristics of needs assessment instruments are crucial for clinicians and researchers to make informed decisions about the most reliable and valid tool for their specific purpose. Inclusion criteria: This review considered studies on multidimensional needs assessment instruments for informal dementia caregivers living at home. Psychometric studies or other types of studies with sufficient data to evaluate methodological quality were included if they considered at least one outcome for reliability or validity. Methods: Studies in English, French or German and published until February 2019 were searched in four databases: Embase, MEDLINE, CINAHL and PsycINFO. After screening the titles, abstracts or full texts for eligibility, the provisional included studies were assessed for methodological quality with a standardized tool for systematic reviews of measurement properties. After data extraction using a standardized tool, the quality of the measurement properties was rated and compared using predefined quality criteria. Results: Eighteen articles covering 14 different needs assessment instruments were included in the review. Eleven publications focused on the development or the evaluation of an instrument. In addition, a development report, a manual and five studies, not aimed primarily at validation but containing sufficient information about the development or the evaluation of the used instruments, were included. The systematic evaluation of the instruments revealed that half of them had excellent content validity. In contrast, structural validity was rarely examined, and mostly with an insufficient sample size or a questionable analysis. None of the instruments had optimally tested and good internal consistency. Regarding reliability, test-retest agreement was rarely tested and inter-rater agreement was evaluated using controversial procedures. Comparing the different instruments reviewed, the “Partnering for better health – living with chronic illness: dementia” had the best psychometric evidence, and the “Questionnaire of consultation expectations” was also partly supported, while most other instruments presently had limited psychometric soundness. Conclusions: Despite the good evidence for some psychometric properties, further developments in the field of needs assessment for informal dementia caregivers are needed, particularly regarding structural and construct validity, as well as test-retest reliability and sensitivity to change. To enhance conceptual clarity, the development of an underlying theoretical model of needs should be prioritized....

Background Recent reviews have synthesised the psychometric properties of measures developed to examine implementation science constructs in healthcare and mental health settings. However, no reviews have focussed primarily on the properties of measures developed to assess innovations in public health and community settings. This review identified quantitative measures developed in public health and community settings, examined their psychometric properties, and described how the domains of each measure align with the five domains and 37 constructs of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). Methods MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and CINAHL were searched to identify publications describing the development of measures to assess implementation science constructs in public health and community settings. The psychometric properties of each measure were assessed against recommended criteria for validity (face/content, construct, criterion), reliability (internal consistency, test-retest), responsiveness, acceptability, feasibility, and revalidation and cross-cultural adaptation. Relevant domains were mapped against implementation constructs defined by the CFIR. Results Fifty-one measures met the inclusion criteria. The majority of these were developed in schools, universities, or colleges and other workplaces or organisations. Overall, most measures did not adequately assess or report psychometric properties. Forty-six percent of measures using exploratory factor analysis reported >50 % of variance was explained by the final model; none of the measures assessed using confirmatory factor analysis reported root mean square error of approximation (0.95). Fifty percent of measures reported Cronbach’s alpha of  0.40). Twenty-five percent of measures reported revalidation or cross-cultural validation. The CFIR constructs most frequently assessed by the included measures were relative advantage, available resources, knowledge and beliefs, complexity, implementation climate, and other personal resources (assessed by more than ten measures). Five CFIR constructs were not addressed by any measure. Conclusions This review highlights gaps in the range of implementation constructs that are assessed by existing measures developed for use in public health and community settings. Moreover, measures with robust psychometric properties are lacking. Without rigorous tools, the factors associated with the successful implementation of innovations in these settings will remain unknown