Worldwide economic constraints on health care systems have highlighted the importance of evidence-based medicine and evidence-based health policy. The resulting clinical trials and health services research studies require instruments to monitor the outcomes of care and the output of thehealth system. However, the over-abundance of competing measurement scales can make choosing a measure difficult at best. Measuring Health provides in-depth reviews of over 100 of the leading health measurement tools and serves as a guide for choosing among them.LNow in its third edition, thisbook provides a critical overview of the field of health measurement, with a technical introduction and discussion of the history and future directions for the field. This latest edition updates the information on each of the measures previously reviewed, and includes a complete new chapter onanxiety measurement to accompany the one on depression. It has also added new instruments to those previously reviewed in each of the chapters in the book.LChapters cover measurements of physical disability, social health, psychological well-being, anxiety, depression, mental status testing, pain, general health status and quality of life. Each chapter presents a tabular comparison of the quality of the instruments reviewed, followed by a detailed description of each method, covering its purpose and conceptual basis, its reliability and validity and, where possible, shows a copy of theactual scale. To ensure accuracy of the information, each review has been approved by the original author of each instrument or by an acknowledged expert.

INTRODUCTION; 1. Background; 2. Selection of instruments for review; 3. Structure of the book; 4. Style and content of the reviews; 5. Format for the reviews; 6. Evauating a health measurement: the user's perspective; THE THEORETICAL AND TECHNICAL FOUNDATIONS OF HEALTH MEASUREMENT; 7. The evolution of health indicators; 8. Types of health measurements; 9. Theoretical bases for measurement; 10. Numerical estimates of health: scaling methods; 11. Identifying and controlling biases in subjective judgements; 12. Conceptual bases for health measurements; 13. The quality of a measurement: validity and reliability; 14. Assessing validity; 15. Assessing reliability; 16. Summary; 17. References; PHYSICAL DISABILITY AND HANDICAP; 18. The evolution of physcial disability measurements; 19. Scope of the chapter; 20. Conclusion; SOCIAL HEALTH; 21. Social adjustment and social rules; 22. Social support; 23. Scope of the chapter; 24. Conclusion; PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING; 25. Scope of the chapter; 26. Conclusion; ANXIETY; 27. Theoretical approaches to anxiety; 28. Anxiety and depression; 29. Anxiety measurements; 30. Conclusion; DEPRESSION; 31. Classifications of depression; 32. Measurement of depression; 33. Scope of the chapter; 34. Conclusion; MENTAL STATUS TESTIN; 35. Measurements of cognition, cognitive impairment and dementia; 36. Scope of the chapter; 37. Conclusion; 38. Additional Instruments; PAIN MEASUREMENTS; 39. Theoretical approaches to pain; 40. Approaches to pain measurement; 41. Questionnaire techniques; 42. Behavioral measurements of pain; 43. Analgue methods; 44. Scope of the chapter; 45. Conclusion; GENERAL HEALTH STATUS AND QUALITY OF LIFE; 46. Measuring quality of life; 47. Scope of the chapter; 48. Conclusion; RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS; 49. The current status of health measurement; 50. Guidelines for developing health measurements; 51. Final remarks