Ware J E, Brook R H, Davies A R, Lohr K N
Am J Public Health. 1981 Jun;71(6):620-5. doi: 10.2105/ajph.71.6.620.
This paper offers suggestions to adi the selection of appropriate instruments and data gathering methods for studies that require measures of personal health status applicable in general populations. Before selecting measures, the reason for studying health status must be identified. Next, definitional issues arise when attempting to specify the components of health that are to be studied. Evidence supports restriction of the definition of personal health status to its physical and mental components, rather than including social circumstances as well. In evaluating the suitability of available measures, three features must be considered: 1) practicality in terms of administration, respondent burden, and analysis; 2) reliability in terms of the study design and group or individual comparisons; 3) validity, in terms of providing information about the particular health components of interest to the study. Evaluating validity will be difficult for most available measures; careful attention to item content will be helpful in choosing appropriate measures. Despite problems in development and interpretation, overall health status indicators will prove useful to many studies and should be considered, as should both subjective and objective measures of health status. Given that the reasons to measure health have been identified, the aspects of health to be measured specified, and attention paid to their suitability, appropriate measures may often be found among those now available.
本文针对那些需要采用适用于普通人群的个人健康状况测量方法的研究，就辅助选择合适的工具和数据收集方法提出了建议。在选择测量方法之前，必须明确研究健康状况的原因。接下来，在试图明确要研究的健康组成部分时，就会出现定义问题。有证据支持将个人健康状况的定义限定为其身体和心理组成部分，而不包括社会环境。在评估现有测量方法的适用性时，必须考虑三个特征：1）在管理、受访者负担和分析方面的实用性；2）在研究设计以及组间或个体比较方面的可靠性；3）在提供有关该研究感兴趣的特定健康组成部分的信息方面的有效性。对于大多数现有测量方法而言，评估有效性会很困难；仔细关注项目内容将有助于选择合适的测量方法。尽管在开发和解释方面存在问题，但总体健康状况指标对许多研究将证明是有用的，应予以考虑，健康状况的主观和客观测量方法也应如此。鉴于已经明确了测量健康的原因，确定了要测量的健康方面，并关注了它们的适用性，那么在现有的测量方法中通常可以找到合适的方法。
