Health Status Measurement, Responsiveness and Sensitivity to Change

For medical decision making, the purpose of measurement is often to measure change in health over time associated with treatment. With this in mind, there has been considerable attention paid to the ability of health status instruments to measure change, often called responsiveness or sensitivity to change. First, it should be noted that there is debate about whether or not to use change scores (the difference between scores at two points in time) at all, and although this discussion is beyond the scope of this entry, further readings have been provided as a starting point for those interested in delving more deeply into this topic. This entry defines responsiveness and sensitivity, provides context for the use of these terms, and explains the main approaches used ...