Objective: People are confronted with claims about the effects of treatments and health policies daily. There is little current evidence available that describes people’s ability to assess claims about treatment effects and there is no instrument available to measure this. We are developing such an instrument as part of an international Project - 'Informed Healthcare Choices' - with the aim of improving the ability of people in low-income countries to assess claims about treatment effects.
Methods: We developed multiple-choice items to address 31 key concepts that people need to understand to be able to assess claims about treatment effects. We obtained feedback on the applicability and relevance of the items from an advisory group and conducted cognitive interviews and a field test with children and adults in Uganda.
Results: We have prepared a pool of approximately 240 items (six to eight per concept) intended to measure basic and applied understanding using plain language and universally relevant scenarios. Members of the advisory group judged the items to be relevant to the concepts. Terminology, instructions and formats were rewritten to address the feedback from children and adults. The items’ psychometric properties will be assessed using Rasch analysis. The final instrument will include approximately 31 items (one for each of the 31 concepts).
Conclusion: The 'CLAIM' Instrument is, to our knowledge, the first instrument to be developed to measure people’s ability to assess claims about treatment effects. We will use the instrument in randomized trials to measure the effects of the 'Informed Healthcare Choices' teaching resources and news service. The items will also be posted on the Informed Healthcare Choices website as a teaching resource for people to test themselves