Measuring the consequences of osteoarthritis and joint pain in population-based studies: can existing health measurement instruments capture levels of participation?

OBJECTIVE: To identify health measurement instruments to investigate levels of participation associated with joint pain in a population survey questionnaire.
METHOD: A comprehensive electronic search of the published literature was performed to identify potential instruments that could measure participation. All items from identified instruments were assessed for the ability to measure participation by 2 experienced and 2 inexperienced assessors. Agreement was determined in terms of actual agreement (%) and agreement beyond chance (kappa).
RESULTS: Twenty-seven instruments (912 items) were identified. Agreement between the experienced assessors occurred in 86% of items (kappa = 0.70, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.65-0.75) and between the inexperienced assessors in 72% (kappa = 0.40, 95% CI 0.34-0.46). The greatest proportion of participation items in one instrument was 82%.
CONCLUSION: None of the identified instruments consisted entirely of participation items. The concept of participation and its translation into measurement for use in the general population is likely to need further development.