Health services research being inherently multi-disciplinary, researchers frequently have a need to assess procedures and measures with which they are not completely familiar. Planning a research project requires selection of appropriate techniques and instruments for the research questions being considered and reviewers of research proposals have a need to determine if an investigator has selected adequate measures, as do readers of research reports. There presently exists a need for a systematically constructed compendium of information about social, psychological, and behavioral measures to assist health services researchers and readers in making informed decisions. Although much information is now available, it exists in an unsystematic array of sources that are neither directed toward the needs of the health services research community nor always comprehensive. The present proposal calls for a plan to systematically construct an annotated compendium of information on measures useful in health services research. This will be a five stage process: 1) systematic surveys will be employed to identify measures to be included; 2) a taxonomy of measures according to their purposes will be developed; 3) information, to include administrative and normative data, reliability, validity, reactivity, context effects, correlations with other measures and socio-demographic variables, and cautions for use, will be assembled; 4) the information will be entered into a data base; and 5) a data base in usable form will be generated. It is expected that this data base will require minimal costs and efforts in updating and will provide direction for future developmental and methodological research.
