Health Measurement Scales: A Practical Guide to Their Development and Use

by David L. Streiner, Geoffrey R. Norman

This is the new edition of the highly successful practical guide for clinicians developing tools to measure subjective states, attitudes or non-tangible outcomes in their patients. It is widely used by people from many disciplines, who have only a limited knowledge of statistics.

This thoroughly updated edition of Health Measurement Scales 3e gives more details on cognitive requirements in answering questions, and how this influences scale development. There is now an expanded discussion of generizibility theory, a completely revised chapter on Item Response Theory and
many revisions are included, based on the latest research findings.

These features combine to provide the most up-to-date guide to measuring scale development available. It synthesizes the theory of scale construction with practical advice, culled from the literature and the authors' experience, about how to develop and validate measurement scales to be used in
the health sciences. The theory goes into issues of reliability, generalizability theroy, validity, the measurement of change, the cognitive requirements of answering questions, and item response theory. Practical issues cover devising the items, biases that may affect the responses, pre-testing
and weeding our poorly performing items, combining items into scales, setting cut points, and the practical issues of using scales in various ways, such as face-to-face interviews; mailed or telephone-administered surveys; and over the internet. One chapter also discusses some of the ethical issues
that scale developers and users should be aware of. Appendices lead the reader to other readings; sources of already developed scales and items; and a very brief introduction to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis.

Paperback

First published December 7, 1989

About the author

Dr. Streiner was trained in Clinical Psychology, and received his Ph.D. in 1968 from Syracuse University . He joined the Psychiatry Department of McMaster University upon graduation.

His primary research interests are, broadly speaking, the psychological effects of medical disorders and treatments, and applying psychological ways of thinking to other areas. Most important, on-going research, though, is exploring the relative merits of oak versus rock maple for making furniture and kids' toys.

Reviews

[Alex Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not exactly a thrill ride, but the authors do a really great job of explaining many statistical concepts. Even though I’ve read dozens of definitions for “reliability” and “validity”, they bring a smart, concise outlook to these well-tread topics.

I borrowed this from a friend because I was looking for more information on Item Response Theory, and that topic only really lasts about 4-5 pages. I’d recommend this to professors looking for a grad-level text that discussed theoretical concerns for measurement. Hard to recommend outside of that narrow demographic.

[Wan-chin Kuo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommended Dr. Streiner's book to all graduate students who would like to do health services research using survey methods. I used this book as my textbook in my class. It's easy to read with rich examples drawn from health science. Dr. Streiner breaks down the measurement theories with assumptions, pros, and cons. Chapter 9 is a bonus to those who would like to apply their teaching with measurement and examine the reliability and validity of their exams, including clinical skills (physical assessment or IV) that are not able to be determined through paper-pencil exams.