We also defined another termination rule for CAT so that the minimum number of items required for completion of the CAT questionnaire was 10.
The initial 41-item questionnaire was administered to the pilot sample, together with a brief questionnaire requesting opinions on items not clearly understood, help needed to clarify items, problems found with item wording, time for completion, pertinence of anchor terms, and problems with display format and font size.
The latter items are required for completion at discharge, but are optional in the admission assessment.
It is a short, twelve-item questionnaire developed for completion by patients undergoing THR [ 12] and is extensively referenced in the orthopaedic literature [ 14- 21].
Empirical work is needed to determine whether the impact of 'length' differs according to how it is defined, for example, using physical length (number of words, pages or items) versus total time for completion.
In anticipation of willingness to participate, potential participants were also sent the initial list of NP items along with instructions for completion the Delphi process [ 4] was used to achieve consensus among a group of experts as to which items describing the identity of an NP were essential to consider when critically appraising an RCT of an NP.
In part this is due to heterogeneity in the definition of length among empirical work (number of words, pages or items or time taken for completion) [ 14] and because an 'appropriate length' is likely to differ according to the target population and topic.
This study describes the design and testing of items for a self-completion questionnaire to be used within 16+ educational institutions to identify and measure the factors that influence the identification of students at HR for psychosis using TPB.
The resultant 27-item questionnaire is designed for completion by parents and contains four factors including Activity, Exploration, Motivation and Adaptability.
The final instrument, then, consisted of a detailed biographical/occupational section, a 40-item questionnaire and instructions for completion.
