MEASUREMENT CHOICES IN MULTISITE STUDIES OF OUTCOMES IN DEMENTIA

This paper summarizes the measurement choices made by selected current or recently completed multi-site projects with a common emphasis on m easuring outcomes in dementia. information on number of items and scor ing, reason(s) for selecting the measure, and reliability and validity of the measure (either citations providing this information or a repo rt of pertinent unpublished findings) is presented for eight domains: cognition, behavioral symptoms, physical health status, physical funct ioning and self-care abilities, quality of life, family/staff caregive r outcomes, service use, and cost. We found considerable reliance on t he published literature as a guide to measurement choice, motivated la rgely by measures' superior psychometric properties, their ubiquity in the literature, and/or their brevity or ease of use. There is still e vidence of ''starting from scratch'' in some domains, however. To the extent that these projects reflect the state of the art in dementia-re levant outcomes research, we conclude that comparison of outcomes acro ss studies will continue to be problematic. However, as long as dissem ination of methodological as well as substantive findings continues to characterize outcome studies in dementia, there is hope that a more c ongruent view of how to assess key outcomes in dementia will emerge.