EHealth University of Twente

13. Computerized adaptive testing of patient-reported health outcomes

Keywords:

Modern psychometrics; CAT; health assessment

Description:

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) increasingly being used to assess the health status of patients with chronic diseases and to evaluate outcomes of treatment from the patient’s perspective. The current generation of PROMs consists of standardized static questionnaires, that are usually quite long and burdensome for patients and are difficult to implement in the busy daily routine of healthcare. The current project focuses on the development and evaluation of computerized adaptive tests (CATs) that can be used across different diseases. CAT is a form of automated testing where a computer adaptively selects questions based on the patient's answer to a previous question. This results in much shorter questionnaires that are more relevant to individual patients and at the same time maintain or surpass the measurement precision of currently used standard questionnaires. To date, we have developed and validated CATs for different domains of health, including pain impact and physical functioning. Currently, the CATs are being for their feasibility and responsiveness in a clinical trial in rheumatoid arthritis patients.

Partners:

Department of Rheumatology, Medisch Spectrum Twente

Duration:

2015- present

Contact person(s) in the SMHA lab:

Peter ten Klooster, Martijn Oude Voshaar, Mart van de Laar