The use of bootstrap methods for analysing Health-Related Quality of Life outcomes (particularly the SF-36).

ABSTRACT: Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) measures are becoming increasingly used in clinical trials as primary outcome measures. Investigators are now asking statisticians for advice on how to analyse studies that have used HRQoL outcomes.HRQoL outcomes, like the SF-36, are usually measured on an ordinal scale. However, most investigators assume that there exists an underlying continuous latent variable that measures HRQoL, and that the actual measured outcomes (the ordered categories), reflect contiguous intervals along this continuum. The ordinal scaling of HRQoL measures means they tend to generate data that have discrete, bounded and skewed distributions. Thus, standard methods of analysis such as the t-test and linear regression that assume Normality and constant variance may not be app

SUBMITTER: Walters SJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC543443 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature