Exploristics, the innovative data analysis company, is pleased to announce the release of a new service that helps clinical researchers from across the healthcare sector to design and validate rating scales and quality of life instruments. We have developed and implemented a novel method that can be applied to the evaluation of rating scales and QoL instruments. Typically, these scales and instruments are used to derive continuous measures of clinical response even though the underlying data are dichotomous (yes/no) or ordinal (a few categories) and contain a number of important domains. In addition, when used to measure response, these measures often obscure important changes within key domains (sections).
Exploristics employs Rasch analysis to investigate various features of the response data. Rasch analysis is based on item response theory (IRT) and can be used to assess and optimise the content and construct validity of the scale or instrument, redundancy of items, reliability and the domain structure.
Exploristics offers expert knowledge of Rasch analysis and its practical application to the extraction of information from rating scales and questionnaire data. For more information on this service, download our technical paper from the Exploristics profile.