A factor analysis merging the item with the support scale supported a one-factor solution, however, the item was in general less correlated with the other items than the correlations between the items in the established scale (data not shown).
Item #12 ("I have strong support from at least one friend" was combined with item #66 ("I have strong support from at least one family member) following feedback about the similarity of items, and suggestions from experts to merge the two items.> Nine new items were included in the questionnaire in response to comments from experts (see Table 7).
Again, the minor deviation in the first DIF analyses could be alleviated by merging the two items "health" and "quality of life" to establish cross-country comparability of the summary score.
So-called subtest analyses were conducted, which were used to merge the scores of those items that display DIF for country.
On the basis of the above analysis, the semantic duplicated items were merged, the vaguely expressed items were adjusted, and the unreasonable items were deleted.
This item was merged with the item about resources to provide health-related information and support to patients: 'Resources to provide health-related information and support to patients to meet their diverse needs (e.g. access to interpreters, answering questions, scheduling appointments)'.
It consists of the five steps determining all items to be documented, merging these items into clinical concepts, matching the derived concepts against existing archetypes, developing archetypes, and designing templates.
Consequently we merged the BF and BS items.
However, by merging the scores of those items which had DIF, the deviations proved to be balanced out.
After merging the scores of those two items which initially indicated DIF, all items fitted the Rasch model, the response scale thresholds were ordered, and no DIF was found.
The game was designed as more of a spin-off than a sequel to previous Myst games, due to the merging of items from the contemporary (traffic cones and T-shirts) to the fantastic (books that transport the user to new worlds).
