The construct validity of the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 in assessing mental health in population health surveys.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the construct validity of the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI3) by exploring relationships among several well-recognized measures of mental health, the K6 and the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), and the HUI3 in a large, nationally representative sample of community-dwelling subjects. Known-group comparisons were also included in the validation process.


METHODS
We specified a priori hypotheses about the expected degree of association between the measures. Correlation coefficients of <0.1 were defined as negligible, 0.1 to <0.3 as small, 0.3 to <0.5 as medium, and > or =0.5 as large. Data from the Statistics Canada National Population Health Survey (NPHS) Cycle 2 (1996/97) for respondents 20 years of age or older (n = 66,435) were used to test the a priori hypotheses.


RESULTS
In 58.1% of cases, predictions of association were correct. Predictions were off by one category in 38.9% of cases and a priori predictions were off by two categories in 3.0% of cases.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results provide evidence supporting the cross-sectional construct validity of the HUI3 emotion and HUI3 in a nationally representative sample of the community-dwelling population. The results also provide further evidence of the cross-sectional construct validity of the HUI3 in assessing population health.
Feeny
David
D
The Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, 3800 N. Interstate Avenue, Portland, 97227-1110, OR, USA. David.Feeny@kpchr.org
Huguet
Nathalie
N
McFarland
Bentson H
BH
Kaplan
Mark S
MS
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D010054:Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale; D002170:Canada; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D055815:Young Adult