The Basic HIV Disease Knowledge Questionnaire: a Rasch-scaled instrument to measure essential HIV knowledge.

The need for improvement in HIV disease-related psychometric questionnaires is noted. In response to this need a Rasch-scaled measure to ascertain basic HIV disease knowledge was developed and calibrated on 1092 subjects. Four studies conducted with the measure suggest adequate test-retest reliability. Three validity studies also conducted with this questionnaire suggest that the measure is sensitive to knowledge obtained from HIV-related training and education. Potential uses and limitations of this new questionnaire are discussed.