Thread by @jrboehnke

1/9 Identification of "meaningful change" is a key area when working w patient-reported outcomes. Nevertheless, this seems to be another area of applied #psychometrics / #statistics where rituals may have replaced understanding & deliberate practice.

🧵 w some QLR-promotion😊😅

2/9 w QLR's special issue on "Methodologies & Considerations for Meaningful Change" (under #peerreview) we wanted to initiate a more deliberate approach, now rolled out to any paper submitted aiming to make a methodological contribution to this area👇

#Epistemology #Ontology

3/9 An area of concern are discussions around different indices, in particular for classifying intra-individual change: depending on interpretation/ use case, they are all likely not appropriate as they are based on between-indiv variation.

Progress is then not even incremental.

4/9 This issue is well-understood theoretically (e.g., journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.…).

And for those for whom theoretical considerations are not enough, two empirical illustrations e.g.: pnas.org/content/115/27…; link.springer.com/article/10.100….

#Ergodicity
@aaronjfisher @bringmann_laura

5/9 But as a more general point:
The connection between the psychometric/ statistical procedures to obtain these indices and interpretations offered has become fairly loose -- if papers provide today any justifications or interpretations at all.

6/9 The aim of the initiative is to further deliberation, transparency & encourage researchers.
The last word has not been had -- but challenges are bigger than replacing one SD for another.

What did the 3 first methodological papers make of this?
(order of publication)👇

7/9 @RonDHays & @dpeipert discuss the use & potential advantages of Jacobson & Truax' significant change vs. group-level approaches:
rdcu.be/cuRds

Their discussion identifies the limitations of the approach and key areas of future theoretical development & research. 👇

8/9 A larger team of authors reviewed the concept of minimal important change as a threshold for a minimal within-person change over time:
link.springer.com/article/10.100…

The introduction includes a clear explanation on how to correctly interpret the results of applying this method. 👇

9/9 Trigg & Griffiths discuss options to triangulate multiple meaningful change thresholds for patient-reported outcome scores:
rdcu.be/cuRIs

Their discussion impresses the importance of differences of approaches & shortcomings of current theory and practice.👇