Construction and validation of an alternate form general mental health scale for the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36-Item Health Survey

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dc.contributor.authorMcHorney, Colleen A.
dc.contributor.authorWare, John E. Jr.
dc.contributor.departmentDepartment of Quantitative Health Sciences
dc.date2022-08-11T08:10:40.000
dc.date.accessioned2022-08-23T17:16:22Z
dc.date.available2022-08-23T17:16:22Z
dc.date.issued1995-01-01
dc.date.submitted2010-06-18
dc.description.abstractAlternate-form health measures are useful for clinical trials or health services research requiring repeated administrations over a short interval of time. Further, by using alternate-form methodology, they can be utilized to estimate score reliability. Data from the Medical Outcomes Study were used to evaluate five alternate forms of the Short-Form 36-Item Health Survey (SF-36) general mental health scale (MHI-5). Well-established psychometric criteria were used to select the best alternate form and to estimate the reliability of the MHI-5 using the alternate-form methodology. Although a considerable degree of comparability across the five alternate forms was observed for criteria pertaining to estimates of item-internal consistency and reliability, distributional characteristics of scales, tests of empirical validity, and score equivalence at the individual level, we recommend one alternate form that satisfied all evaluation criteria and did so better than any other alternate form. Using the alternate-form methodology of estimating reliability, results suggest that the internal-consistency method underestimates the reliability of the MHI-5 by 3%. The methodology presented here should prove useful to others interested in constructing and evaluating alternate forms, and the alternate form recommended here (MHI-5AF) should prove useful across many health status assessment applications.
dc.identifier.citationMed Care. 1995 Jan;33(1):15-28. <a href="http://journals.lww.com/lww-medicalcare/Abstract/1995/01000/Construction_and_Validation_of_an_Alternate_Form.2.aspx">Link to article on publisher's site</a>
dc.identifier.contextkey1363356
dc.identifier.issn0025-7079 (Linking)
dc.identifier.legacycoverpagehttps://escholarship.umassmed.edu/qhs_pp/522
dc.identifier.pmid7823644
dc.identifier.submissionpathqhs_pp/522
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/47383
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.relation<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=7823644&dopt=Abstract">Link to Article in PubMed</a>
dc.relation.urlhttp://journals.lww.com/lww-medicalcare/Abstract/1995/01000/Construction_and_Validation_of_an_Alternate_Form.2.aspx
dc.source.issue1
dc.source.journaltitleMedical care
dc.source.pages15-28
dc.source.volume33
dc.subjectAged
dc.subjectBoston
dc.subjectChicago
dc.subjectChronic Disease
dc.subjectComorbidity
dc.subjectFemale
dc.subjectHealth Services Research
dc.subjectHealth Surveys
dc.subjectHumans
dc.subjectLos Angeles
dc.subjectMale
dc.subjectMental Disorders
dc.subjectMiddle Aged
dc.subject*Outcome Assessment (Health Care)
dc.subject*Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
dc.subjectRegression Analysis
dc.subjectReproducibility of Results
dc.subjectBiostatistics
dc.subjectEpidemiology
dc.subjectHealth Services Research
dc.titleConstruction and validation of an alternate form general mental health scale for the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36-Item Health Survey
dc.typeJournal Article
dspace.entity.typePublication
html.description.abstract<p>Alternate-form health measures are useful for clinical trials or health services research requiring repeated administrations over a short interval of time. Further, by using alternate-form methodology, they can be utilized to estimate score reliability. Data from the Medical Outcomes Study were used to evaluate five alternate forms of the Short-Form 36-Item Health Survey (SF-36) general mental health scale (MHI-5). Well-established psychometric criteria were used to select the best alternate form and to estimate the reliability of the MHI-5 using the alternate-form methodology. Although a considerable degree of comparability across the five alternate forms was observed for criteria pertaining to estimates of item-internal consistency and reliability, distributional characteristics of scales, tests of empirical validity, and score equivalence at the individual level, we recommend one alternate form that satisfied all evaluation criteria and did so better than any other alternate form. Using the alternate-form methodology of estimating reliability, results suggest that the internal-consistency method underestimates the reliability of the MHI-5 by 3%. The methodology presented here should prove useful to others interested in constructing and evaluating alternate forms, and the alternate form recommended here (MHI-5AF) should prove useful across many health status assessment applications.</p>
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