Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Measuring Health


Measuring Health: A Guide to Rating Scales and Questionnaires [Kindle Edition]

Author: Ian McDowell | Language: English | ISBN: B0054ID992 | Format: PDF, EPUB

Measuring Health: A Guide to Rating Scales and Questionnaires
You can download Measuring Health: A Guide to Rating Scales and Questionnaires for everyone book mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link Worldwide economic constraints on health care systems have highlighted the importance of evidence-based medicine and evidence-based health policy. The resulting clinical trials and health services research studies require instruments to monitor the outcomes of care and the output of the health system. However, the over-abundance of competing measurement scales can make choosing a measure difficult at best. Measuring Health provides in-depth reviews of over 100 of the leading health measurement tools and serves as a guide for choosing among them.LNow in its third edition, this book provides a critical overview of the field of health measurement, with a technical introduction and discussion of the history and future directions for the field. This latest edition updates the information on each of the measures previously reviewed, and includes a complete new chapter on anxiety measurement to accompany the one on depression. It has also added new instruments to those previously reviewed in each of the chapters in the book.LChapters cover measurements of physical disability, social health, psychological well-being, anxiety, depression, mental status testing, pain, general health status and quality of life. Each chapter presents a tabular comparison of the quality of the instruments reviewed, followed by a detailed description of each method, covering its purpose and conceptual basis, its reliability and validity and, where possible, shows a copy of the actual scale. To ensure accuracy of the information, each review has been approved by the original author of each instrument or by an acknowledged expert. Direct download links available for Measuring Health: A Guide to Rating Scales and Questionnaires [Kindle Edition]
  • File Size: 10114 KB
  • Print Length: 768 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 3 edition (February 24, 2006)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B0054ID992
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray:
    Not Enabled
  • Lending: Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #957,194 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
In an era of accountability, McDowell and Newell do an excellent job of pulling together instruments to assess patients' health. Although this volume was primary designed for Occupational and Physical Therapists, it should have a broader audience. It includes over 80 instruments with a summary on how to employ each device with estimates of reliability and validity. They give more than adequate details to enable the professional to make decisions regarding the quality and appropriateness of each single measure. Users of these tools need to comprehend the extreme lengths that it took for McDowell and Newell to accomplish their task. Their work is truly impressive. On pages 47-50, the authors do a particularly good job explaining the difference between ADL and IADL.
In addition, the authors do a particularly good job in providing technical details needed by professionals to make decisions about the need and appropriateness of an instrument to serve the specific needs of a patient. Students who are learning about calibration of psychometric instruments will also find the work beneficial. They will immediately see the practical application of theoretical concepts presented in classroom decisions. I have placed this fine book on closed serve for students to use after my presentation on reliability and validity.
Every university library should adopt a copy this is fine monograph.
By S. M Marson
... Which is suppose is not a big deal for a book that has to cover all of health. It did describe 8 scales that covered anxiety in general, however. If I needed to chose a scale to measure anxiety for an important project then I would definitely see what this book had to offer. If you wanted a book about health scales but not about SPECIFIC health scales, then I would go for Streiner and Norman.

My copy of the book seemed to have been printed with a laser printer and not had the toner fused to the paper. The print smudged if I rubbed it with a finger and I could completely erase a word if I tried to use a highlighter pen to highlight it! It was, "Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper". Oopsie. Maybe they could learn something from Alphapress and have their books printed on demand by Amazon!

The introduction to the Anxiety chapter made a nonsensical and unreferenced distinction between anxiety and fear. It also makes naive comments about who uses dimensional and categorical scales.

I recommend that if you are thinking of getting this book, that you first consider Measures for Clinical Practice and Research by Fischer and Corcoran, also published by OUP, but printed with actual ink. It is huge, 2 volumes, about 1400 pages, and has lots more scales.
By Pen Name and That A

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