To investigate informant effects and instrument effects, we compared the two diagnostic sources PACS and CTRS and compared them to a third source, the CPRS, which was not implemented in the diagnostic procedure, but was used for screening.
The two instruments with which we compared our own instrument use different methodologies and were originally developed to assess comorbidity in studies investigating the objective outcomes of mortality and cost of care respectively [ 4, 7].
To assess the instrument's performance, we compared size distributions measured with the electrical diffusion battery to those obtained with standard aerosol instruments (the scanning mobility particle sizer and the fast mobility particle sizer of TSI Inc.).
For example, when we compared instrument usage patterns between the period from 2000 2004 with that from 2005 2010, we found that SCORAD usage increased by 106%; EASI usage increased by 165%; IGA usage increased by 169%, and SASSAD usage decreased by 20%.
To account for real outliers (e.g., not artifacts produced by human, instruments, or transmission errors), we compared suspicious values with data from nearby climate stations.
In addition to estimating the reliability of the instruments, we also compared their ability to discriminate known groups based on CD4 count, symptom distress score, number of days spent in bed and number of days where activity had to be reduced due to health status.
We compared each instrument against the Episodic Disability Framework [ 12] We evaluated the instruments against the dimensions of disability in the framework [ 12].
We compared these instruments with other validated risk instruments (HCR-20, S-RAMM), a measure of psychopathology (PANSS) and global function (GAF).
As the instrument was developed in Canada we compared reliability in Canadian communities with others.
In this study, we compared the innovative instrument with the classic laparoscopic instruments.
