Skip to main content
. 2022 Jun 13;11:121. doi: 10.1186/s13643-022-01994-5

Table 1.

COSMIN definitions of domains, measurement properties and aspects of measurement properties [7]

Domain Term Definition
Measurement property Measurement property aspect
Reliability The degree to which the measurement is free from measurement error
Reliability (extended definition) The extent to which scores for patients who have not changed are the same for repeated measurement under several conditions: e.g., using different sets of items from the same OMI (internal consistency); over time (test-retest); by different persons on the same occasion (inter-rater); or by the same persons on different occasions (intra-rater)
Internal consistency The degree of interrelatedness among the items
Reliability The proportion of the total variance in the measurements which is due to ‘true’ differences between patients
Measurement error The systematic and random error of a patient’s score that is not attributed to true changes in the construct to be measured
Validity The degree to which an OMI measures the construct(s) it purports to measure
Content validity The degree to which the content of an OMI is an adequate reflection of the construct to be measured
Face validity The degree to which (the items of) an OMI indeed seems to be an adequate reflection of the construct to be measured
Construct validity The degree to which the scores of an OMI are consistent with hypotheses (e.g., with regard to internal relationships, relationships to scores of other OMIs, or differences between relevant groups) based on the assumption that the OMI validly measures the construct to be measured
Structural validity The degree to which the scores of an OMI are an adequate reflection of the dimensionality of the construct to be measured
Hypotheses testing Idem construct validity
Cross-cultural validity The degree to which the performance of the items on a translated or culturally adapted OMI are an adequate reflection of the performance of the items of the original version of the OMI
Criterion validity The degree to which the scores of an OMI are an adequate reflection of a gold standard
Responsiveness The ability of an OMI to detect change over time in the construct to be measured
Responsiveness Idem responsiveness
Interpretabilitya The degree to which one can assign qualitative meaning (i.e., clinical or commonly understood connotations) to an OMI’s quantitative scores or change in scores

COSMIN COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments

aNot considered a measurement property, but an important characteristic of a measurement instrument