Chapter 7. Questionnaire Development and Scoring

  1. Peter M. Fayers1,2,
  2. David Machin3,4

Published Online: 8 MAR 2002

DOI: 10.1002/0470846283.ch7

Book Title

Quality of Life: Assessment, Analysis and Interpretation

Quality of Life: Assessment, Analysis and Interpretation

Additional Information

How to Cite

Fayers, P. M. and Machin, D. (2002) Questionnaire Development and Scoring, in Quality of Life: Assessment, Analysis and Interpretation, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK. doi: 10.1002/0470846283.ch7

Author Information

  1. 1

    Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit, London, UK

  2. 2

    Unit of Applied Clinical Research, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

  3. 3

    NMRC Clinical Trials & Epidemiology Research Unit, Singapore

  4. 4

    School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, UK

Publication History

  1. Published Online: 8 MAR 2002
  2. Published Print: 18 APR 2000

ISBN Information

Print ISBN: 9780471968610

Online ISBN: 9780470846285

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Keywords:

  • target population;
  • item generation;
  • literature search;
  • specialist interview;
  • likert scales;
  • visual analogue scales;
  • Guttman scales;
  • field testing

Summary

Designing and developing new instruments constitutes a complex and lengthy process. It involves many interviews with patients and others, studies testing the questionnaires upon patients, collection of data, and statistical and psychometric analyses of the data to confirm and substantiate the claims for the instrument. The full development of an instrument may take many years. If at any stage inadequacies are found in the instrument there will be a need for refinement and re-testing. Many instruments undergo iterative development through a number of versions, each version being extensively reappraised.

Sometimes an existing instrument may address many but not all of the QoL issues that are important to a clinical investigation. In such circumstances, one can consider adding supplementary questions to the questionnaire.

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