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Table 2 Structured item development criteria used to assess quality of items

From: Development of the Health Literacy of Caregivers Scale - Cancer (HLCS-C): item generation and content validity testing

# Criteria to assess item quality Possible outcome Acceptable outcome to retain item
1 How difficult is the item for respondents endorse the maximum score Very difficult; Moderately difficult; Easy All three possible outcomes. Author sought to develop constructs that contained items with a range of difficulty
2 How comprehensible is the item for caregivers with high and low literacy Comprehensible; Contains words that may be difficult for caregivers to understand Comprehensible
3 How relevant is the item for respondents of different ages Relevant to caregivers ages 18 years and above; Not relevant to specific age groups (e.g., elderly) Relevant to caregivers ages 18 years and above
4 How pertinent is the item to the associated content area Critical/Core; Important; Relevant Critical/Core; Important
5 How relevant is the item to all members of the target population (i.e., caregivers of adults with cancer) Relevant to caregivers across the cancer spectrum; Specific to caregiving experiences along cancer spectrum Relevant to caregivers across cancer spectrum
6 How independent is the item to other items Moderately independent; Too closely related to one or more items Moderately independent
7 How well does the item fit with other items in the construct Fits well; Different content or meaning to other items in construct Fits well
8 Does the item capture a single idea (or two closely related ideas) Yes; No Yes
9 How minimal are the information processing demands One or two processing demands; More than one or two processing demands One or two processing demands
10 Does the item stem correspond to the response scale Yes; No Yes
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BMC Family Practice

ISSN: 1471-2296

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