Customer Reviews

Measuring Health: A Guide to Rating Scales and Questionnaires

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In an era of accountability, McDowell and Newell do an excellent job of pulling together instruments to assess patients' health. Although this volume was primary designed for Occupational and Physical Therapists, it should have a broader audience. It includes over 80 instruments with a summary on how to employ each device with estimates of reliability and validity. They give more than adequate details to enable the professional to make decisions regarding the quality and appropriateness of each single measure. Users of these tools need to comprehend the extreme lengths that it took for McDowell and Newell to accomplish their task. Their work is truly impressive. On pages 47-50, the authors do a particularly good job explaining the difference between ADL and IADL.

In addition, the authors do a particularly good job in providing technical details needed by professionals to make decisions about the need and appropriateness of an instrument to serve the specific needs of a patient. Students who are learning about calibration of psychometric instruments will also find the work beneficial. They will immediately see the practical application of theoretical concepts presented in classroom decisions. I have placed this fine book on closed serve for students to use after my presentation on reliability and validity.

Every university library should adopt a copy this is fine monograph.

If your work place is like mine there is an abundance of assessment forms available. We use them daily,weekly or yearly on our clients to access physical and mental wellbeing for treatment or research. But are you using the best assessment available? Are the otcome scores reliable? This book gathers a range of tested, reliable & valid health assessments in a handy (and very heavy) guide. It has been fun & interesting to check what assessments I use against their original purpose. Some I use have been 'adapted' and I found the originals easier to follow (and reassuringly valid in these days of "Evidence based Practice"). I also enjoy the commentaries as it makes me think about possible research I could do and what issues I might need to consider. There are lots of descriptors and some reproductions of the scale or questionairre (good to check against what is on your database), the talk about reliability & validity are not too heavy. A great book to dip into and a good read.

Great resource. A gold-standard for anyone in the field of health psychology