Quality criteria were proposed for measurement properties of health status questionnaires.
OBJECTIVE
Recently, an increasing number of systematic reviews have been published in which the measurement properties of health status questionnaires are compared. For a meaningful comparison, quality criteria for measurement properties are needed. Our aim was to develop quality criteria for design, methods, and outcomes of studies on the development and evaluation of health status questionnaires.


METHODS
Quality criteria for content validity, internal consistency, criterion validity, construct validity, reproducibility, longitudinal validity, responsiveness, floor and ceiling effects, and interpretability were derived from existing guidelines and consensus within our research group.


RESULTS
For each measurement property a criterion was defined for a positive, negative, or indeterminate rating, depending on the design, methods, and outcomes of the validation study.


CONCLUSIONS
Our criteria make a substantial contribution toward defining explicit quality criteria for measurement properties of health status questionnaires. Our criteria can be used in systematic reviews of health status questionnaires, to detect shortcomings and gaps in knowledge of measurement properties, and to design validation studies. The future challenge will be to refine and complete the criteria and to reach broad consensus, especially on quality criteria for good measurement properties.
Terwee
Caroline B
CB
EMGO Institute, VU University Medical Center, Van der Boechorststraat 7, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands. cb.terwee@vumc.nl
Bot
Sandra D M
SD
de Boer
Michael R
MR
van der Windt
Daniëlle A W M
DA
Knol
Dirk L
DL
Dekker
Joost
J
Bouter
Lex M
LM
de Vet
Henrica C W
HC
D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design; D012196:Review Literature as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*