ArticleQuality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation2009
Readability estimates for commonly used health-related quality of life surveys.
Article in Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled 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.
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.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A Systematic Review of Patient-Reported Outcome Instruments Relevant to Glaucoma.Journal of glaucoma · 2026Pooled it
- Predicting Work Disability Related to Spinal Pain: A Systematic Review of the Most Clinically Relevant Tools.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2026Pooled it
- Tailored Approach to Sleep Health Education (TASHE): a randomized controlled trial of a web-based application.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2020Trial
- The effect of bariatric surgery on patient HRQOL and sexual health during a 1-year postoperative period.Obesity surgery · 2015Trial
- Evaluating Readability and Understandability of Patient-Reported Questionnaires for Bladder Pain Syndrome.International urogynecology journal · 2026Article
- Mapping resilience: Development of the resilience process scales (RPS) and resilience profiles during adversity.PloS one · 2026Article
- Large language models and child mortality: opportunities and challenges in answering public queries on under-5 causes.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Assessing stroke survivors' knowledge: a scoping review of tools and influencing factors.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- Psychometric properties, and cultural appropriateness, of patient reported outcome measures for use in primary healthcare: a scoping review.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Designing and Validating a Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia-Specific Quality of Life Rating Scale (HSPQoL).Cerebellum (London, England) · 2024Article
- Article
- Health-related quality of life in Chinese individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a multicenter cross-sectional study.Health and quality of life outcomes · 2023Article
- Readability of Commonly Used Quality of Life Outcome Measures for Youth Self-Report.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- The development and psychometric evaluation of the Survey of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Functional Health Literacy.Sleep medicine research · 2021Article
- Development of social contact and loneliness measures with validation in social prescribing.BMJ open quality · 2021Article
- Establishing content-validity of a disease-specific health-related quality of life instrument for patients with chronic hypersensitivity pneumonitis.Journal of patient-reported outcomes · 2021Article
- Measure what we want: a taxonomy of short generic person-reported outcome and experience measures (PROMs and PREMs).BMJ open quality · 2020Article
- Development and initial testing of a Health Confidence Score (HCS).BMJ open quality · 2019Article
- Personal Wellbeing Score (PWS)-a short version of ONS4: development and validation in social prescribing.BMJ open quality · 2019Article
- Web-based Health Information Seeking and eHealth Literacy among Patients Living with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).Health communication · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTo estimate readability of seven commonly used health-related quality of life instruments: SF-36, HUI, EQ-5D, QWB-SA, HALex, Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ), and the NEI-VFQ-25.
methodsThe Flesch-Kincaid (F-K) and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) formulae were used to estimate readability for every item in each measure.
resultsThe percentage of items that require more than 5 years of formal schooling according to F-K was 50 for the EQ-5D, 53 for the SF-36, 80 for the VFQ-25, 85 for the QWB-SA, 100 for the HUI, HALex, and the MLHFQ. The percentage of items deemed harder than "easy" according to FRE was 50 for the SF-36, 67 for the EQ-5D, 79 for the QWB-SA, 80 for the VFQ-25, 100 for the HUI, HALex, and the MLHFQ.
conclusionsAll seven surveys have a substantial number of items with high readability levels that may not be appropriate for the general population.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.