Health Measurement Scales: A practical guide to their development and use / Edition 5

by David L. Streiner, Geoffrey R. Norman, John Cairney

Overview

Clinicians and those in health sciences are frequently called upon to measure subjective states such as attitudes, feelings, quality of life, educational achievement and aptitude, and learning style in their patients. This fifth edition of Health Measurement Scales enables these groups to both develop scales to measure non-tangible health outcomes, and better evaluate and differentiate between existing tools.

Health Measurement Scales is the ultimate guide to developing and validating measurement scales that are to be used in the health sciences. The book covers how the individual items are developed; various biases that can affect responses (e.g. social desirability, yea-saying, framing); various response options; how to select the best items in the set; how to combine them into a scale; and finally how to determine the reliability and validity of the scale. It concludes with a discussion of ethical issues that may be encountered, and guidelines for reporting the results of the scale development process. Appendices include a comprehensive guide to finding existing scales, and a brief introduction to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, making this book a must-read for any practitioner dealing with this kind of data.

Editorial Reviews

Doody's Review Service

Reviewer: Michalene A King, PhD, RN, CNE (Robert Morris University)
Description: This book is described as a guide to developing and validating measurement instruments. The previous edition was published in 2008.
Purpose: The intent is to introduce researchers in health sciences to concepts of measurement. This is a worthy objective, which the book meets.
Audience: The audience is students and clinicians in the health sciences. The authors feel it is appropriate for persons using surveys, questionnaires, or any kind of subjective measurement. This edition adds a third author. All the authors are credible authorities.
Features: The book begins with an introduction and a description of basic concepts of measurement. Chapters describe the process of developing measurement instruments and cover validity, reliability, and generalizability. The book concludes with chapters on administration, reporting of results, and ethical considerations. Appendix A, "Where to Find Tests," contains a wealth of information about available instruments.
Assessment: This is comparable to most research books, with similar content. It contains many statistical calculations to better explain the information presented. The authors justify this update by explaining that the changes are based on readers' comments on the previous edition. Similarly, the authors encourage readers of this edition to submit suggestions and feedback.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199685219
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/02/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	1,061,846
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

Related Subjects

• Public Health & Preventive Medicine