Defining clinically meaningful change in health-related quality of life.

By Ross D. Crosby, R. Kolotkin, G. Williams. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 2003

1,210 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article reviews current approaches to defining clinically meaningful change in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and provides guidelines for their use. Definitions of clinically meaningful change are discussed. Two broad methods for identifying clinically meaningful change are contrasted: anchor-based methods and distribution-based methods. Anchor-based methods include cross-sectional approaches and longitudinal approaches. Distribution-based methods include those based on statistical significance, sample variability, and measurement precision. Anchor-based and distribution-based methods have advantages and limitations, and neither seems to be superior to the other. An integrated system for defining clinically meaningful change is recommended that combines anchor-based and distribution-based methods. We propose a new terminology for describing meaningful change derived from anchor-based and distribution-based methods.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Epidemiology, General Health Professions

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5b4a137fd2c3366c1a9d0c3168324b48409b0600

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Citations in the corpus

Short forms of two condition-specific quality-of-life questionnaires for women with pelvic floor disorders (PFDI-20 and PFIQ-7). (2005, methodology): “It should be noted that these values represent the within-treatment MCID.”
How is the minimal clinically important difference established in health-related quality of life instruments? Review of anchors and methods (2020, background): “From the patient’s viewpoint, a meaningful change in HRQoL may be one that reflects a reduction in symptoms or improvement in function, however, a meaningful change for the physician may be one that indicates a change in the treatment or in the prognosis of the disease [16, 17].”
ISOQOL recommends minimum standards for patient-reported outcome measures used in patient-centered outcomes and comparative effectiveness research (2013, background): “[49] Defining clinically meaningful change in health-related quality of life Literature review Reviews current approaches to defining clinically meaningful change in healthrelated quality of life and provides guidelines for their use”
Quality criteria were proposed for measurement properties of health status questionnaires. (2007, background): “Distribution-based approaches are based on statistical characteristics of the sample [45].”
Recommended methods for determining responsiveness and minimally important differences for patient-reported outcomes. (2008, methodology): “A number of anchor-based and distribution-based methods have been used to determine the MID for PRO measures [22, 23 ,25].”
Interpreting Change Scores for Pain and Functional Status in Low Back Pain: Towards International Consensus Regarding Minimal Important Change (2008, methodology): “Another is the standard error of measurement, which relates the reliability of the measurement instrument to the standard deviation of the population.(7) Effect size and standardized From the *EMGO Institute, VU University Medical Centre; †Institute for Health Sciences, VU University, Amsterdam, The”