Health research instruments as defined by HAPI are questionnaires, psychological tests, health status indicators, genetic test, interview schedules, checklists, index measures, coding schemes/manuals, inventories, rating scales, projective techniques, and vignettes/scenarios.
Resources/guidelines to help you locate health research instruments:
- HAPI: is a specialized test and measurement database. From Advanced Search mode, type in keywords related to your topic, then limit to ‘Primary Source’ to retrieve articles with the actual instrument that include the instrument. Otherwise results will include articles about instruments but not necessarily the instruments themselves.
- PsycTESTS: a database of test development/assessment contains downloadable copies of tests whenever they are available. Provides information about reliability, validity, permissions of use, where the test was originally developed etc...
- PubMed: type in keywords related to your topic then AND with search terms such as survey or questionnaire or instrument or measure or assessment or scale.
- PsycInfo: type in keywords related to your topic then AND with search terms such as survey or questionnaire or instrument or measure or assessment or scale OR from top menu under "Indexes", then under browse an index select "Tests and Measures" and follow screen directions from there...
- CINAHL: limit your search to the two publication types: Questionnaire/Scale (here there is an actual questionnaire/scale in the item) and Research Instrument (here the paper is a summary description of the specific research instrument). There are also CINAHL headings such as 'Research Instruments', 'Instrument Validation', 'Instrument Construction' and 'Instrument Scaling'. From Advanced search, one of the options is the field 'IN Instrumentation' which is used to search for instruments by typing one word of the instrument name. Another option is to search the Advanced mode by typing your topic in the first box and limiting to 'SU Subject', then type in the second box test* or scale* or questionnaire* or survey* or measure* and limiting to 'AB Abstract'.
- Proquest Dissertations and Theses: sometimes these contain the instrument used published in an appendix.
- Clinical Key Nursing: look under “Nursing Scale”
- NCLEX-RN Exam Prep
