BACKGROUND The assessment of needs for cancer care is a critical step in providing high quality care and achieving cancer patients' and families' satisfaction. Instruments can be used to assess needs and guide cancer care planning. This study discusses the importance of the needs assessment, relationships between needs, satisfaction and quality of life; and reviews the assessment instruments of...

There is increasing pressure, both from institutions central to the national scientific mission and from regional and national accrediting agencies, on natural sciences faculty to move beyond course examinations as measures of student performance and to instead develop and use reliable and valid authentic assessment measures for both individual courses and for degree-granting programs. We repor...

A comprehensive assessment of the multiple symptom domains associated with fibromyalgia (FM) and the impact of FM on multidimensional aspects of function should form a routine part of the care of FM patients. Clinical trials and long-term clinical registries have used various outcome measures, but the key domains include pain, fatigue, disturbed sleep, physical functioning, emotional functionin...

BACKGROUND Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) may provide valuable information to clinicians and patients when choosing initial antiretroviral therapy. OBJECTIVE To identify and classify PRO instruments used to measure treatment effects in clinical trials evaluating NNRTIs. METHODS We conducted a structured literature review using PubMed to identify NNRTI trials published from March 2003 to F...

BACKGROUND There are a substantial number of instruments for primary-care clinicians to assess physical-activity (PA). However, there are few studies that have explored the views of clinicians regarding comparative acceptability and ease of use. A better understanding of how clinicians perceive instruments could help overcome barriers, and inform future interventions. This study explored the ac...

OBJECTIVE the aims of this review were (i) to identify quality-of-life (QoL) measures which have had their measurement properties validated in people residing in care homes or nursing homes, and to critically compare and summarise these instruments and (ii) to make recommendations for measurement instruments. METHODS bibliographic databases PsycINFO, PubMed, Cochrane, CINAHL and Embase were s...

Objectives: If wound assessment instruments are to be used in the periodic assessment of wound healing, they must prove to be valid, reliable and sensitive measures of wound healing. Thus, this systematic literature review aims to examine available wound healing instruments in terms of these parameters. Method: Only instruments able to measure changes in wound healing were included in this revi...

BACKGROUND COSMIN (COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments) is an initiative of an international multidisciplinary team of researchers who aim to improve the selection of outcome measurement instruments both in research and in clinical practice by developing tools for selecting the most appropriate available instrument. METHOD In this paper these tools ar...

BACKGROUND Rheumatic diseases commonly affect joints and other structures in the hand. Surgery is a traditional way to treat hand problems in inflammatory rheumatic diseases with the purposes of pain relief, restore function and prevent progression. There are numerous measures to choose from, and a combination of outcome measures is recommended. This study evaluated if instruments commonly used...