![]() It has been suggested that health informatics has a paucity of well-known and consistently used research constructs with established instruments for measuring them. Just as poor study design or inadequate sample size can jeopardize the integrity of a study, so too can measurements that are to a significant extent unreliable or invalid. 1 If these are absent, investigators must proceed carefully based only on assumptions about what their measurements mean. Before using a new instrument, investigators should carry out measurement studies that explore whether the methods are acceptably reliable and valid. For this reason, researchers use preexisting measurement instruments wherever possible and typically only develop their own instruments when there is no existing suitable instrument or when they are measuring a new construct unaddressed in published research. Measurement is fundamental to empirical science and requires instruments that are valid and reliable: that provide reproducible results and measure what they claim to measure.
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