Issues in the Development of an Item Bank

Objective: To describe and illustrate 2 issues involved in the development of an item bank that can be used to improve measurement across settings and over time.

Design: Secondary (psychometric) analysis of data collected on existing quality of life (QOL) instruments.

Setting: Five cancer clinics in hospital settings in various parts of the United States; 523 solo or group practices in 3 major US cities; and an inpatient rehabilitation hospital in a large metropolitan area.

Participants: Illustration 1: 399 persons being treated for or having a history of cancer, 170 persons being treated for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), 328 persons with stroke assessed during and after acute rehabilitation, and 433 persons being treated for multiple sclerosis. Illustration 2: 1714 persons with cancer and/or HIV participating in a large-scale multisite study, 3429 persons with prevalent treatable chronic health conditions, and 125 persons with stage IV metastatic breast cancer.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcomes Measures: QOL as measured by 10 different instruments.

Results: The illustrations show that (1). core items, which functioned similarly across 4 diagnostic groups, can be identified and used to construct instruments measuring physical function that are tailored to each of these groups, and (2). items from 3 separate datasets can be linked to create a dataset that can serve as an initial pain item bank.

Conclusion: The methodology exists to develop item banks to develop better measures of QOL.