Clinimetrics: Assessing Measurement Properties of Health Measurement Instruments

Wieneke Mokkink is assistant professor at Amsterdam UMC, and her research focuses on developing internationally accepted guidelines to support the design and reporting of studies on measurement properties (e.g. validity, reliability), as well as the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews. As co-founder and current chair of the COSMIN (COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments) initiative, she aims to connect researchers dedicated to improving measurement quality.

She is a world leader in the field of outcome measurement, focusing on methodology for the selection and standardization of outcome measures, for example through systematic reviews of outcome measures, Core Outcome Set development, and the validation and implementation of IRT-based PROMIS (and other) item banks.

Sietske Sikkes is an associate professor at the Department of Clinical, Neuro and Developmental Psychology at the VU University and the Alzheimer Center Amsterdam of the Amsterdam UMC. Sietske does research in Neuropsychology, Psychometrics, Epidemiology and Biological Psychology. Her focus is on finding the optimal measurement methods for cognition, everyday functioning and behavior in neurodegenerative disorders, both as early diagnostic markers and markers for disease progression. Additionally she focuses on digital assessments to innovate dementia diagnostic pathways ('digital biomarkers').

Benjamin Schalet, PhD, is an assistant professor at Amsterdam UMC. He has an extensive background in the development and validation of patient-reported outcomes (PRO) measures, focusing on psychometric procedures, including item response theory (IRT). Dr. Schalet served as the Director for the Psychometrics and Statistics Core in the Department of Medical Social Sciences (Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, USA) for eight years, where he was associate professor until 2022. Dr. Schalet was a co-investigator of the HealthMeasures initiative, which curates and sustains four PRO systems funded by the National Institute of Health, including PROMIS.  Dr. Schalet has collaborated across a variety of fields, including cancer, mental healthcare, orthopedics, HIV. 

Ellen Elsman is assistant professor at Amsterdam UMC, and she is specializing in the evaluation and selection of health measurement instruments, with a particular emphasis on patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). She has conducted multiple systematic reviews of measurement properties of instruments, and she played a key role in the development of the PRISMA-COSMIN reporting guideline, aimed at enhancing transparency and consistency in systematic reviews of measurement instruments. She also conducts studies on measurement properties for diverse populations.