Despite past evidence that suggested clinicians in the rehabilitation field did not regularly use outcome measures (Cole et al. 1994; Deathe et al. 2002; Skinner et al. 2006), there is mounting evidence that confirms more clinicians are now reporting their findings using some ordinal or quantifiable outcome measure (Kay et al. 2001; Skinner et al. 2006).
- Good science and good clinical practice depends upon sound information, which in turn relies on sound measurement.
- Measurement enables health care professionals and researchers to describe, predict and evaluate in order to provide benchmarks and summarize change related to the condition and care of individuals with spinal cord injury.
- Using datasets facilitates tracking of patient outcomes in relation to healthcare costs.
- Clinical investigators recognize that using an appropriate outcome measure, to determine the validity of a therapeutic intervention, is the key to establishing or changing the models of best practice.
There is a sincere desire to move beyond minimal data collected through datasets such as the mandatory Canadian Institutes of Health Information (CIHI) Rehabilitation Minimum Data Set or the Functional Independence Measure (FIM). Nevertheless there is a lack of validated measures for many disciplines within rehabilitation research. There is also uncertainty as to the strength and limitations for each type of assessment.
- SCIRE Outcome Measures provides information on the psychometric properties and the clinical use of 107 measures, giving the reader the necessary confidence to move their clinical practice and research forward on a more rigorous basis.
To read further on the Methods of SCIRE Outcome Measures, click below:
*For the purposes of this review the terms listed (screen, tool, instrument, measure, scale) will be used interchangeably to indicate a method used to capture data in a standardized manner.