Theses and Dissertations Collection

Assessing practice effectiveness is necessary for evidence-based practice (EBP). Use of EBP allows for more effective health care decisions and provides a process for a clinician to improve the efficacy of clinical practice, while also providing valuable information about treatment effectiveness and patient recovery to important stakeholder groups. Researchers have created patient reported outcome (PRO) instruments to examine specific constructs or symptoms (e.g., pain, functional limitation) meaningful to patients to assess patient recovery and treatment effectiveness. However, many of the currently used scales have not be tested using contemporary psychometric analysis techniques to establish factorial validity. The purpose of this dissertation was three-fold: (1) to address the gap in the literature related to the psychometric measurement properties of the Disablement in the Physically Active (DPA) Scale, (2) explore short from versions of the DPA Scale that may be more effective for use in clinical practice and research, and (3) develop and validate a new PRO instrument to assess health status, while providing important summary components for clinicians.