Background We conducted a review of articles citing trial-related resource use measures catalogued in the Database of Instruments for Resource Use Measurement (http:// www.DIRUM.org). The aims were to assess: (i) how the instruments were used in practice; (ii) which items of resource use were most frequently measured using patient-recall; and (iii) how estimates compared if more than one method...

The need for accurate information about the mental health problems of multicultural the mental health problems of multicultural communities requires valid measures of communities requires valid measures of mental health for use in a number of mental health for use in a number of languages and cultural contexts. Measures languages and cultural contexts. Measures of psychopathological symptoms le...

According to new studies, even low levels of prenatal alcohol exposure can negatively affect the developing fetus, thereby increasing the importance of identifying women who drink during pregnancy. In response, researchers have developed several simple alcohol-screening instruments for use with pregnant women. These instruments, which can be administered quickly and easily, have been evaluated ...

BACKGROUND Person-centredness is promoted as a central feature of the long-term care of older adults. Measures are needed to assist researchers, service planners and regulators in assessing this feature of quality. However, no systematic review exists to identify potential instruments and to provide a critical appraisal of their measurement properties. METHOD A systematic review of measures o...

Background The management of drug safety with the collection of reliable safety data during the conduction of clinical trials conduct is essential for the registry and marketing of products. The systematic evaluation of this process, based on objective measures, requires the application of quality instruments. This study was aimed to design and validate eight instruments through the components ...

BACKGROUND Healthcare researchers often use multiple healthcare survey instruments to examine a particular patient symptom. The use of multiple instruments can pose some interesting research questions, such as whether the outcomes produced by the different instruments are in agreement. We tackle this problem using information theory, focusing on mutual information to compare outcomes from multi...

conclusions the use of absorbable tacks during tapp confers significant benefit regarding the operating time, however it is a disadvantage due to the cost when compared with fibrin glue. results the group of tacks ‘tapp’ showed good results concerning the level of pain, fatigue and foreign body sensation comparable with those of the historical group. there were significant differences concernin...

BACKGROUND Profile instruments are frequently used to assess health-related quality of life and other patient-reported outcomes. However, preference-based measures are required for health-economic cost-utility evaluations. RESULTS Although regression-based approaches are commonly used to map from profile measures to preference measures, we show that this results in biased estimates because of...

By means of the above criteria, further primary research and consensus-type processes should be used to evaluate leading instruments in the different fields and specialties of health care to improve use of patient-based outcome measures in trials. Primary research is needed either in the form of methodological additions to substantive clinical trials (for example comparing the performance of tw...