OBJECTIVE To assess the sensitivity to change over time of four health status instruments in relation to patients with rheumatoid arthritis. DESIGN Observational three month study of four self assessed instruments (arthritis impact measurement scales (AIMS), health assessment questionnaire (HAQ), Nottingham health profile (NHP), functional limitations profile (FLP)). SETTING One rheumatolog...

OBJECTIVE To compare the cost and performance of 2 types of laparoscopic instrumentation: reusable laparoscopic hook cautery instruments and curved scissors, or limited-reuse laparoscopic hook cautery instruments and curved scissors. DESIGN A randomized trial. SETTING The operating room of a tertiary care hospital. METHOD All general surgeons performing laparoscopic procedures at the hosp...

OBJECTIVE To identify currently available generic and disease-specific health-related quality of life (HRQOL) instruments for children and adolescents up to 19 years old, to describe their content, and to review their psychometric properties. STUDY DESIGN Previous reviews on the subject and a new literature review from 2001 to December 2006 (MEDLINE, the ISI Science Citation Index, HealthSTAR...

This article reviews the instrument development process and synthesizes current research findings for three low-vision and blind rehabilitation outcomes measures developed in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The examined measures include the Blind Rehabilitation Service Functional Outcomes Survey, the Functional Assessment of Self-Reliance on Tasks, and the VA Low Vision Visual Function...

Condition-specific health status measures are commonly used as outcome measures in clinical trials and to assess patient progress in routine clinical practice. The expert panel that met to discuss this special issue of Spine recommended that, when possible, a condition-specific measure for back pain should be chosen from two widely used measures, the Roland–Morris Disability Questionnaire (RDQ)...

BACKGROUND Outcome assessment can support the therapeutic process by providing a way to track symptoms and functionality over time, providing insights to clinicians and patients, as well as offering a common language to discuss patient behavior/functioning. OBJECTIVES In this article, we examine the patient-based outcome assessment (PBOA) instruments that have been used to determine outcomes ...

The assessment of risk is a critical part of child welfare agency practice. This review of the research literature on different instruments for assessing risk and safety in child welfare focuses on instrument reliability, validity, outcomes, and use with children and families of color. The findings suggest that the current actuarial instruments have stronger predictive validity than consensus-b...

OBJECTIVE Neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia, have a profound impact on those with the conditions and their family carers. Consequently, the accurate measurement of family carers' quality of life (QOL) is important. Generic measures may miss key elements of the impact of these conditions, so using disease-specific instruments has been advocated. This systematic review aimed to identif...

This paper is Part II of a series of articles on Terahertz heterodyne imaging. In Part I introductory information and techniques were presented. In this paper the authors describe four different types of heterodyne imaging instruments that have been established at their facilities. In Part III (to appear in a future issue of this journal) selected applications of these instruments are discussed.