Abandoning the language of "response shift": a plea for conceptual clarity in distinguishing scale recalibration from true changes in quality of life.

Journal Article (Journal Article)

Quality of life researchers have been studying "response shift" for a decade now, in an effort to clarify how best to measure QoL over time and across changing circumstances. However, we contend that this line of research has been impeded by conceptual confusion created by the term "response shift", that lumps together sources of measurement error (e.g., scale recalibration) with true causes of changing QoL (e.g., hedonic adaptation). We propose abandoning the term response shift, in favor of less ambiguous terms, like scale recalibration and adaptation.

Full Text

Duke Authors

Cited Authors

  • Ubel, PA; Peeters, Y; Smith, D

Published Date

  • May 2010

Published In

Volume / Issue

  • 19 / 4

Start / End Page

  • 465 - 471

PubMed ID

  • 20112000

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1573-2649

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0962-9343

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1007/s11136-010-9592-x

Language

  • eng