BACKGROUND Meaning in life is a key indicator of subjective well-being and quality of life. Further developments in understanding and enhancing the construct will depend inter alia on the sound measurement thereof. This study is at the forefront of applying modern psychometric techniques to the Meaning in Life Questionnaire, a scale widely used to assess meaning in life. METHOD The Rasch rati...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Our objective was to describe the psychometric properties of a measure of team development that can be used to assess and guide team functioning in health care settings. METHODS The Team Development Measure (TDM) is a 31-item questionnaire constructed using the Rasch rating scale measurement model. We conducted an Mplus exploratory factor analysis using data collecte...

medicina fluminensis 2012, Vol. 48, No. 4, p. 463-470 463 Abstract. In recent years there has been an increasing use of outcome measures in clinical practice, audit procedures and quality control. The psychometric assessment of these measures is still largely based on classical test theory (CTT), including analysis of internal consistency, reproducibility, and criterion-related validity. But th...

The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale is a widely used measure of depressive symptoms, but its psychometric properties have not been adequately evaluated among adults with HIV/AIDS. This study used an item response theory approach (Rasch analysis) to evaluate the CES-D's validity and reliability in relation to key demographic and clinical variables in adults with HIV/A...

OBJECTIVE Social withdrawal is described as the condition in which an individual experiences a desire to make social contact, but is unable to satisfy that desire. It is an important issue for patients with motor neurone disease who are likely to experience severe physical impairment. This study aims to reassess the psychometric and scaling properties of the MND Social Withdrawal Scale (MND-SWS...

BACKGROUND The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) is commonly used to assess symptoms of anxiety and depression in motor neurone disease (MND). The measure has never been specifically validated for use within this population, despite questions raised about the scale's validity. This study seeks to analyse the construct validity of the HADS in MND by fitting its data to the Rasch model...

The Pediatric Volitional Questionnaire (PVQ) is a 15- item play-based assessment of a child's motivational strengths and weaknesses in various settings based on the Model of Human Occupation. A previous study examined the PVQ's ability to provide a valid measure of volition in ten non-disabled children. This study combined data from the previous study with data on eight children with disabiliti...

BACKGROUND Participation in education is a vital component of adolescents' everyday life and a determinant of health and future opportunities in adult life. The School Setting Interview (SSI) is an instrument which assesses student-environment fit and reflects the potential needs for adjustments to enhance students' participation in school activities. The aim of the study was to investigate the...

BACKGROUND Fatigue is a common symptom in post-polio syndrome (PPS) and can have a substantial impact on patients. There is a need for validated questionnaires to assess fatigue in PPS for use in clinical practice and research. The aim with this study was to assess the validity and reliability of the Swedish version of Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20) in patients with PPS using the R...