Family Practice Vol. 20, No. 4, 499
© Oxford University Press 2003
Book Review |
Measurement tools in patient education. Second edition.
Barbara K Redman. (486 pages, US$78.80.) Springer Publishing Company, 2003. ISBN 0-8261-9859-7.
University Lecturer in General Practice, Cambridge
This is a cookbook of recipes to evaluate patients’ perceptions about—well—about quite a lot of things actually. The main body of the book describes 86 instruments for measuring patients’ beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, decision making, knowledge, self-efficacy and learning. It aims to bring together instruments to measure the starting point, process or outcome of patient education activities. It omits instruments included in the first edition which have not been used or developed since then.
The book opens with a very brief section outlining the concepts of validity, reliability, sensitivity, ease of use and significance, with pointers to more detailed sources in these areas. Its main body then provides a short background and critique of each instrument with relevant references. It would act therefore as a good starting point to decide about the suitability of the included scales for a piece of research. In addition, it is useful to have access to the scales themselves, which are reproduced in their entirety.
Scales included are grouped by their area of interest—diabetes or asthma for example—though many relate to miscellaneous and diverse areas: the endoscopy confidence questionnaire or the macular degeneration self-efficacy scale are illustrations. Despite the number of scales included, however, the menu is not exhaustive. Horne and Weinman’s ‘Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire’, for example, is missing.
As with all cookbooks, this variety means that care may be needed: it is a mistake to offer a soufflé when the situation is best served by beans on toast. Also, to paraphrase Michael Balint, asking questions will get answers —but hardly anything more. Nevertheless, this book is about offering valid ways of asking closed questions in a defined area and, provided its instruments are confined to that use, recognizing there may be more to patients’ knowledge and understanding than can be encompassed in a scale, they are appropriate tools to use. This is a useful book to visit to see whether a project can benefit from a proven instrument rather than cooking up one from scratch.
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