Abstract
In the last decades, several instruments have been used to evaluate the impact of oral health problems on the oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) of individuals. However, some instruments lack thorough methodological validation or present conceptual differences that hinder comparisons with instruments. Thus, it can be difficult to clinicians and researchers to select a questionnaire that accurately reflect what are really meaningful to individuals. This short communication aimed to discuss the importance of use an appropriate checklist to select an instrument with a good methodological quality. The COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) checklist was developed to provide tools for evidence-based instrument selection. The COSMIN checklist comprises ten boxes that evaluate whether a study meets the standard for good methodological quality and two additional boxes to meet studies that use the Item Response Theory method and general requirements for results generalization, resulting in four steps to be followed. In this way, it is required at least some expertise in psychometrics or clinimetrics to a wide-ranging use of this checklist. The COSMIN applications include its use to ensure the standardization of cross-cultural adaptations and safer comparisons between measurement studies and evaluation of methodological quality of systematic reviews of measurement properties. Also, it can be used by students when training about measurement properties and by editors and reviewers when revising manuscripts on this topic. The popularization of COSMIN checklist is therefore necessary to improve the selection and evaluation of health measurement instruments.
Highlights
Subjective health measurement instruments play a key role in public health, clinical practice and decision-making processes for health services organization [1,2]
In Dentistry, several instruments have been developed and used aiming to assess the impact that oral diseases or even poor oral health has on daily functioning, well-being or oral healthrelated quality of life (OHRQoL) of individuals and families [3]
The first nine boxes are related to studies on measurement properties (A=Internal consistency, B=Reliability, C=Measurement error, D=Content validity, E=Structural validity, F=Hypothesis-testing, G=Crosscultural validity, H=Criterion validity, I=Responsiveness) and the last box contains standards for studies on interpretability of Health-Related Patient-Reported Outcomes (HR-PRO) instruments (J=Interpretability)
Summary
Saul Martins Paiva, Matheus de França Perazzo, Fernanda Ruffo Ortiz, Isabela Almeida Pordeus, Paulo Antônio Martins-Júnior. It can be difficult to clinicians and researchers to select a questionnaire that accurately reflect what are really meaningful to individuals This short communication aimed to discuss the importance of use an appropriate checklist to select an instrument with a good methodological quality. The COSMIN checklist comprises ten boxes that evaluate whether a study meets the standard for good methodological quality and two additional boxes to meet studies that use the Item Response Theory method and general requirements for results generalization, resulting in four steps to be followed. In this way, it is required at least some expertise in psychometrics or clinimetrics to a wide-ranging use of this checklist. Key-Words: checklist, methods, oral health, quality of life, surveys and questionnaires
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