Psychometric evaluation and calibration of health-related quality of life item banks: plans for the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS).
BACKGROUND
The construction and evaluation of item banks to measure unidimensional constructs of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is a fundamental objective of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) project.


OBJECTIVE
Item banks will be used as the foundation for developing short-form instruments and enabling computerized adaptive testing. The PROMIS Steering Committee selected 5 HRQOL domains for initial focus: physical functioning, fatigue, pain, emotional distress, and social role participation. This report provides an overview of the methods used in the PROMIS item analyses and proposed calibration of item banks.


METHODS
Analyses include evaluation of data quality (eg, logic and range checking, spread of response distribution within an item), descriptive statistics (eg, frequencies, means), item response theory model assumptions (unidimensionality, local independence, monotonicity), model fit, differential item functioning, and item calibration for banking.


CONCLUSIONS
Summarized are key analytic issues; recommendations are provided for future evaluations of item banks in HRQOL assessment.
Reeve
Bryce B
BB
National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA. reeveb@mail.nih.gov
Hays
Ron D
RD
Bjorner
Jakob B
JB
Cook
Karon F
KF
Crane
Paul K
PK
Teresi
Jeanne A
JA
Thissen
David
D
Revicki
Dennis A
DA
Weiss
David J
DJ
Hambleton
Ronald K
RK
Liu
Honghu
H
Gershon
Richard
R
Reise
Steven P
SP
Lai
Jin-shei
JS
Cella
David
D
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002138:Calibration; D019992:Databases as Topic; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D012650:Self Disclosure; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards; D014481:United States