Identifying Optimal Items in Quality of Life Assessment |
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Authors: | Ting Hsiang Lin |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Statistics, National Taipei University, 67, Section 3, Ming-Sheng East Road, Taipei, 10433 Taiwan, ROC |
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Abstract: | Quality of life has drawn increasing attention in health science and more efforts have been devoted to develop instruments
that are valid and reliable to assess quality of life. The World Health Organization (WHO) has devised an instrument World
Health Organization Quality of Life Survey- Abbreviated Version (WHOQOL-BREF) to assess quality of life, but the psychometric
property of each individual item has not been studied yet. Using item response theory, we examine the properties of the WHOQOL-BRIEF
Taiwan version. Samejima’s graded response model was fitted, and item parameters were calculated. The items were ranked base
on their discrimination power, and the best items are identified. Several data with subset of items (22, 20, 18, 16 and 14
items) were created by omitting items with lower discrimination power. The test information function of the full questionnaire
and the subsets were compared. The results showed there were significant positive correlations between the full questionnaire
and the subsets of items and the distributions are similar. The test information function showed the maximum amount of test
information spaced over two ends of the theta continuum, and this suggested that the WHOQOL-BREF provided more information
for groups with either lower or higher satisfaction of quality of life, while it is less discriminating for individuals in
the middle range. |
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Keywords: | WHOQOL-BREF item response theory test information |
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