Carla Sabariego1,2,3, Carolina Fellinghauer4, Lindsay Lee4, Aleksandra Posarac5, Jerome Bickenbach1,2,3, Nenad Kostanjsek6, Somnath Chatterji7, Kaloyan Kamenov8, Alarcos Cieza4. 1. Department of Health Sciences and Medicine, University of Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland. 2. Swiss Paraplegic Research, Nottwil, Switzerland. 3. Center for Rehabilitation in Global Health Systems, WHO Collaborating Center, University of Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland. 4. Sensory Functions, Disability and Rehabilitation, Department of Noncommunicable Diseases, World Health Organization, Avenue Appia 20, 1211, Geneva, Switzerland. 5. Africa East Human Development, The World Bank, Washington, USA. 6. Department of Information, Evidence and Research, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. 7. Department of Data and Analytics, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. 8. Sensory Functions, Disability and Rehabilitation, Department of Noncommunicable Diseases, World Health Organization, Avenue Appia 20, 1211, Geneva, Switzerland. kamenovk@who.int.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The Model Disability Survey (MDS) is the current standard recommended by WHO to collect functioning and disability data. Answering calls from countries requesting a version to be implemented as a module that could be integrated into existing surveys and be used for monitoring disability trends and for data disaggregation, WHO developed the brief MDS. The objectives of this paper are to evaluate the metric properties of the disability metrics generated with the Brief MDS and the precision of the Brief MDS in comparison with the full MDS. RESULTS: The partial credit model, a unidimensional model for polytomous data from the Rasch family, was applied to evaluate psychometric properties using data from national MDS implementations in Chile (N = 12,265) and in Sri Lanka (N = 3000). The Brief MDS generates valid metrics for measuring disability, from the perspectives of capacity and performance, thereby achieving good levels of measurement precision in comparison with its full counterpart. CONCLUSION: Given the scarcity of valid functioning and disability modules for household surveys, the Brief MDS represents a milestone in disability measurement. The Brief MDS is currently used by countries to monitor disability trends over time, which is especially important to evaluate the impact of health policies and public health interventions, to disaggregate indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals, and to monitor the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
BACKGROUND: The Model Disability Survey (MDS) is the current standard recommended by WHO to collect functioning and disability data. Answering calls from countries requesting a version to be implemented as a module that could be integrated into existing surveys and be used for monitoring disability trends and for data disaggregation, WHO developed the brief MDS. The objectives of this paper are to evaluate the metric properties of the disability metrics generated with the Brief MDS and the precision of the Brief MDS in comparison with the full MDS. RESULTS: The partial credit model, a unidimensional model for polytomous data from the Rasch family, was applied to evaluate psychometric properties using data from national MDS implementations in Chile (N = 12,265) and in Sri Lanka (N = 3000). The Brief MDS generates valid metrics for measuring disability, from the perspectives of capacity and performance, thereby achieving good levels of measurement precision in comparison with its full counterpart. CONCLUSION: Given the scarcity of valid functioning and disability modules for household surveys, the Brief MDS represents a milestone in disability measurement. The Brief MDS is currently used by countries to monitor disability trends over time, which is especially important to evaluate the impact of health policies and public health interventions, to disaggregate indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals, and to monitor the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).