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Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings

Published in:

01-12-2015

Are Single-Item Global Ratings Useful for Assessing Health Status?

Authors: Cathaleene Macias, Paul B. Gold, Dost Öngür, Bruce M. Cohen, Trishan Panch

Published in: Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings | Issue 4/2015

Abstract

The research performance of the single-item self-rating In general, would you say your health is: excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor? was evaluated relative to the SF-36 General Health Scale that contains this item, using data for a sample of psychiatric outpatients who had co-occurring chronic physical conditions (N = 177). The scale was more robust than the single-item in cross-sectional validity tests and for predicting 2-year outcomes, but the single-item had stronger discriminant validity as a measure of physical health, especially in post-baseline analyses. Single-item and scale were both sensitive enough to detect change in perceived health over 2 years and a conditional experimental effect on health self-perceptions in a randomized trial. These findings demonstrate that a global single-item can be as valid, reliable, and sensitive as a multi-item scale for longitudinal research purposes, even if the scale performs better in cross-sectional surveys or as a screening measure.

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Title: Are Single-Item Global Ratings Useful for Assessing Health Status?
Authors: Cathaleene Macias
Paul B. Gold
Dost Öngür
Bruce M. Cohen
Trishan Panch
Publication date: 01-12-2015
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings / Issue 4/2015
Print ISSN: 1068-9583
Electronic ISSN: 1573-3572
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10880-015-9436-5

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Are Single-Item Global Ratings Useful for Assessing Health Status?

Abstract

At a glance: The STEP trials

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Abstract

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