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[ Recorded presentation ] Recorded presentation

Assessing the Assessment: How do Health Status Instruments Measure Up for People with Disabilities?

Trevor Hall, PhD1, Gloria L. Krahn, PhD, MPH2, Willi Horner-Johnson, PhD3, and Laura A. Hammond, MPH, CHES2. (1) RRTC: Health and Wellness, Oregon Health & Science University, PO Box 574, Portland, OR 97207, 503494-3533, halltr@ohsu.edu, (2) Rehabilitation Research and Training Center: Healtlh and Wellness, Oregon Health and Science University, PO Box 574, Portland, OR 97207, (3) Center on Community Accessibility, Oregon Health & Science University, PO Box 574, Portland, OR 97207

Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) is recognized increasingly as an important outcome measure in health and social science research. Unfortunately, many of the popular measures of HRQOL (e.g., MOS SF-36, SIP) penalize for functional impairment, leading to lower scores for persons with disabilities that may not accurately reflect their health status and quality of life. This presentation describes a method for systematically evaluating items for functional bias and describes the process of developing a new HRQOL measure that is relatively free of functional impairment bias. A total of 90 measures of generic HRQOL were identified from the research literature and other databases. A national expert panel on measurement and disability (N=10) rated all items (N = 648) from all instruments for negative bias within domain constructs. These ratings were summarized as Content Validity Ratios (CVR), a statistical measure of consensus developed by Lawshe (1975). Use of the criterion of CVR in excess of .60 (meaning 80% panel agreement) resulted in 243 items retained for future consideration in developing a new measure. These items were further reviewed for bias in wording or content by the expert panel using a functional bias framework developed with input from the expert panel as well as the research literature. The implications of using this method and next steps in development of this new measure are discussed.

Learning Objectives: Learning Objectives