Evidence map›Paper›PMID 12797708›Full record

ArticleQuality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation2003

On assessing responsiveness of health-related quality of life instruments: guidelines for instrument evaluation.

C B Terwee, F W Dekker, W M Wiersinga, M F Prummel, P M M Bossuyt

Abstract readValidation Study
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In one paragraph

Article in Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 2003. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 228 papers, 15 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
228citing papers in PubMed, 15 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

228 citing papers in PubMed, 15 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Psychometric properties of self-reported measures of psychological birth trauma in puerperae: A COSMIN systematic review.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2025
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  6. Psychometric properties of the EQ-5D-5L: a systematic review of the literature.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2021
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  8. Patient-Reported Quality-of-Life Outcome Measures in the Thyroid Cancer Population.Thyroid : official journal of the American Thyroid Association · 2020
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168 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

C B TerweeInstitute for Research in Extramural Medicine, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. cb.terwee.emgo@med.vu.nl
F W Dekker
W M Wiersinga
M F Prummel
P M M Bossuyt

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

A lack of clarity exists about the definition and adequate approach for evaluating responsiveness. An overview is presented of different categories of definitions and methods used for calculating responsiveness identified through a literature search. Twenty-five definitions and 31 measures were found. When applied to a general and a disease-specific quality of life questionnaire large variation in results was observed, partly explained by different goals of existing methods. Four major issues are considered to claim the usefulness of an evaluative health-related quality of life (HRQL) instrument. Their relation with responsiveness is discussed. The confusion about responsiveness arises mostly from a lack of distinction between cross-sectional and longitudinal validity and from a lack of distinction between responsiveness defined as the effect of treatment and responsiveness defined as the correlation of changes in the instrument with changes in other measures. All measures of what is currently called responsiveness can be looked at as measures of longitudinal validity or as measures of treatment effect. The latter ones tell us little about how well the instrument serves its purpose and are only of use in interpreting score changes. We therefore argue that the concept of responsiveness can be rejected as a separate measurement property of an evaluative instrument.

Indexed as

Health Status IndicatorsQuality of LifeSurveys and QuestionnairesHumansSickness Impact ProfileStatistics as Topic

Identifiers

PMID12797708

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.