How to determine the quality of a questionnaire according to the CONsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments? A simplified guide to the measurement properties of assessment instruments - Part I: basic concepts and reliability

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:

The type of questionnaire that aims to capture a patient’s perception/view of an aspect to be measured (e.g. pain intensity) is called Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM). One of the biggest challenges that clinicians and researchers often face is making a decision about which PROM to use for the assessment of their patient with pain, especially due to the lack of scientific literacy needed to understand the criteria and terms used in the field of measurement properties. Thus, the objectives of this narrative review (part I) were: (I) to introduce basic concepts about PROMs with a focus on the terminology and criteria defined through the COnsensus- based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN), and (2) to describe the measurement properties of the reliability domain.

METHODS:

This study was produced using a search for articles from the COSMIN initiative. As the subject is very extensive, the authors divided the text into two parts.

RESULTS:

This study described basic concepts about PROMs (purposes and constructs), the process of cross-cultural adaptation and the measurement properties of the reliability domain (reliability, error measure and internal consistency). In general, an instrument with adequate reliability quality should meet certain criteria, such as: intraclass correlation coefficient ≥0.70, error measure < minimal clinically important change and Cronbach’s Cronbach’s α ≥ 0.70.

CONCLUSION:

The understanding on how to determine the quality of reliability can assist clinicians and researchers in choosing the best PROMs available. A checklist for assessing the quality of the measurement properties of PROMs is described in the part II of the manuscript.

Keywords:
Chronic pain; Data reliability; Musculoskeletal pain; Psychometrics; Surveys and questionnaires

HIGHLIGHTS

Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) é a sigla para instrumento baseado no relato do paciente

Os PROMs podem ser classificados em propósito: avaliativo, discriminativo e prognóstico

COSMIN é o acrônimo para uma iniciativa que visa padronizar as propriedades de medida de PROMs

O COSMIN recomenda 12 passos para o processo de adaptação transcultural

A Confiabilidade avalia se no teste-reteste o escore do PROM fornece resultados semelhantes, em indivíduos estáveis