Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2003 Jan;56(1):52-60.
doi: 10.1016/s0895-4356(02)00537-1.

Comparative responsiveness of generic and specific quality-of-life instruments

Samuel Wiebe  1 , Gordon Guyatt, Bruce Weaver, Suzan Matijevic, Casey Sidwell
Affiliations
Review

Comparative responsiveness of generic and specific quality-of-life instruments

Samuel Wiebe et al. J Clin Epidemiol. 2003 Jan.

Abstract

We assessed the relative responsiveness of generic and specific quality of life instruments in 43 randomized controlled trials that compared head-to-head 31 generic and 84 specific instruments. Using weighted effect size as the metric of responsiveness, we assessed the impact of instrument type, disease category, and magnitude of underlying therapeutic effect on responsiveness, and assessed the responsiveness of specific instruments relative to the corresponding domains of generic measures. In studies with a nonzero therapeutic effect, specific instruments (mean = 0.57) were significantly more responsive than generic instruments (mean = 0.39, P =.01), and than the corresponding domains of generic instruments (mean = 0.40, P =.03). Studies with low, medium, and high therapeutic effects showed a corresponding gradation in responsiveness differences between specific and generic instruments. We conclude that, overall, specific instruments are more responsive than generic tools, and that investigators may come to misleading conclusions about relative instrument responsiveness if they include studies in which the magnitude of the underlying therapeutic effect is zero.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

LinkOut - more resources

-