Methodological Aspects for the Development and Validation of Measurement Scales in Health

Alexandru BALOG, Lidia BĂJENARU, Irina CRISTESCU
National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics – ICI Bucharest
8-10 Mareșal Alexandru Averescu Av., 011455, Bucharest, Romania
alexandru.bolog@ici.ro, lidia.bajenaru@ici.ro, irina.cristescu@ici.ro

Abstract: In the field of health, many measurement scales have been developed and validated to evaluate the health status, psychological well-being and health-related quality of life. For the purpose of selecting a particular measurement scale or for developing new measurement scales (instruments), a coherent approach, including evaluation criteria, procedures, and evaluation techniques, is needed. Based on the analysis of the literature, the authors presented a set of criteria for evaluating the measurement scales and proposed a methodology for the development and validation of the measurement scales in the health domain. The methodology includes five steps: conceptualization, measure development, model specification, scale evaluation and refinement, scale validation. The evaluation criteria and methodology provide a general framework that can be used in academic research and clinical research to carry out empirical studies on the development and validation of measurement scales.

Keywords: measurement scale, evaluation criteria, the quality of measurement instruments, scale development and validation, methodology, patient-reported outcome (PRO).

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CITE THIS PAPER AS:
Alexandru BALOG, Lidia BĂJENARU, Irina CRISTESCU, Methodological Aspects for the Development and Validation of Measurement Scales in Health, Romanian Journal of Information Technology and Automatic Control, ISSN 1220-1758, vol. 29(2), pp. 85-100, 2019. https://doi.org/10.33436/v29i2y201907