Commentary: Carrasco-Labra et al. Minimal important difference estimates for patient-reported outcomes: A systematic survey

Carrasco-Labra et al [1] are to be congratulated for opening the door to more useful and useable information resulting from reviews of outcome measurement instruments. Rather than existing in the files of the authors, and reported in an article, they have moved the findings from a thorough review of the literature onto an online, searchable database of 5,324 minimally important difference (MID) values extracted for 526 instruments from 585 studies. At a minimum, they have just saved researchers, clinicians and policy makers needing estimates of MIDs countless hours of work finding these often elusive values within the literature and leaving the work of finding that data to people skilled in systematic reviews of available evidence.
Source: Journal of Clinical Epidemiology - Category: Epidemiology Authors: Tags: Commentary Source Type: research