Readability estimates for commonly used health-related quality of life surveys

Paz, Sylvia H.; Liu, Honghu; Fongwa, Marie N.; Morales, Leo S.; Hays, Ron D.

doi:10.1007/s11136-009-9506-y

Cited by 46 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(35 reference statements)

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“…35 Changes in process, work flow and information systems are likely to be needed to ensure that the assessments are done regularly and to inform clinical decisions; 36 this requires technical support to set up and maintain the system (paper or electronic), help and explanations for individual patients, staff education and senior management backing. 37 Short questionnaires (parsimony) tend to provide higher participation rates, reduced respondent resistance 38 Readability is selfevidently important, yet Paz and colleagues 39 found that all commonly used instruments have many items with readability levels below the threshold recommended for documents to be used by vulnerable people of a readability grade score of 5.0 or less and a reading ease score of over 80. 40 The howRu form has a grade score of 1.8 and an ease score of 89.…”

Section: Implications For Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of a new short generic measure of health status: howRu

Benson¹,

Sizmur²,

Whatling³

et al. 2010

Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics

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Background Quality of life is paramount for patients and clinicians, but existing measures of health were not developed for routine use. Objectives This paper describes the development and testing of a new generic tool for measuring health related quality of life (HRQoL) with direct comparison to the SF-12 Health Survey. Methods The new tool (howRu) has four items (discomfort, distress, disability and dependence), rated using four levels (none, a little, quite a lot and extreme), providing 256 possible states (4

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Section: Implications For Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of a new short generic measure of health status: howRu

Benson¹,

Sizmur²,

Whatling³

et al. 2010

Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This is also important because patients are concentrated amongst the most vulnerable, disadvantaged and deprived sectors of society. Paz et al 10 suggested a criterion of five years of schooling as appropriate for health surveys, and found that none of seven commonly used surveys that they tested, including EQ-5D, achieved this. The readability grade, which approximates to years of schooling needed, is 2.6 for howRU, compared with 6.0 for EQ-5D.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of howRU and EQ-5D measures of health-related quality of life in an outpatient clinic

Benson¹,

Potts²,

Whatling³

et al. 2013

Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics

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This paper reports on a head-to-head study of howRU and EQ-5D on patients with cardiovascular disease. howRU is a short generic measure of health-related quality of life comprising 39 words, designed for routine use, which we compare with EQ-5D (230 words). Patients attending a clinic completed both instruments. Completed data were available for 116 patients, 51% female, mean age 56 and SD 20. howRU is shorter, has better readability statistics, a higher completion rate, a wider range of states used and a smaller ceiling effect than EQ-5D. The correlations of howRU with EQ-5D are similar to those of EQ-5D with other validated instruments.Keywords: EQ-5D, health-related quality of life, health status, howRU, patient-reported outcomes, PROMs

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“…Although many readability formulae are available, Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) is a popular, tested and reliable tool for readability testing (Rameezdeen & Rajapakse, 2007). FRES is consistent and highly associated with other indices (Paz et al 2009). Therefore, FRES is considered to be suitable for assessing the readability levels of modified clauses against the standard conditions in this research.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modifications to standard forms of contract: the impact on readability

Rameezdeen

Rodrigo

2014

CEB

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Lack of clarity in contract documents can lead to disputes between contracting parties. Standard form contracts have evolved due to construction business becoming increasingly complex and the difficulty in drafting bespoke conditions of contract for each project. Numerous advantages have been identified in using standard forms of contract. However, clients often modify some clauses in order to include specific requirements for a project. While the consequences of ill-modifications to standard forms have been researched, no study has been done on the impact of these modifications on the clarity and readability of the document. Using 281 modified clauses from large infrastructure projects implemented in Sri Lanka, this study found that on balance modifications generally make the document more difficult to read; 60% of the sample clauses were more difficult to read compared to 40% becoming easier. More than 50% of the original and modified clauses were still at the 'very difficult' level of readability, which requires the equivalent of post-graduate level to understand. The study contends that modifications have not resulted in improved readability. The study highlights the necessity of clear and plain language when modifying contract documents.

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Readability estimates for commonly used health-related quality of life surveys

Cited by 46 publications

References 39 publications

Evaluation of a new short generic measure of health status: howRu

Evaluation of a new short generic measure of health status: howRu

Comparison of howRU and EQ-5D measures of health-related quality of life in an outpatient clinic

Modifications to standard forms of contract: the impact on readability

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