Posted by badhaircut on September 9, 2004, at 15:26:08
In reply to Re: stress from life events, posted by Dr. Bob on September 9, 2004, at 0:22:49
> Next is a measure of stress expected from life events: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/srrs.pl
•1•
I realize in the 1960s questionnaires were usually sexist, but this is 2004. The last item, "Wife begin or stop work," can easily be made more inclusive. Would Elsevier object? We can adapt it so working moms with stay-at-home dads (for example) can answer this item, too.
If the precise figure for debt has been updated (I assume it has), these throwback terms can be, too.•2•
"Change in church activities". Again, we can excuse mild bigotry in the '60s, but for here & now, why not substitute "religious" for "church"? Surely it won't render the score meaningless if a non-Christian is allowed to answer this item.•3•
I still feel that not giving any information on how to interpret the CES-D or the SF-36 makes them less useful and more problematic even just for monthly self-tracking. (The justification given was that mentioning a cut-off score could confuse someone into thinking they had a medical diagnosis.)
But not giving any interpretive information about the stressful events score renders it, well, useless. Is 250 good? Is 40 bad? If it's just for tracking every 6 months and my score is 800, I'll be dead from a heart attack before I get to take it again. One item not considered on the SRRS: Getting an unexplained high score on an internet stress test! :DBob, I realize you're adding these things as a neat expansion of P-B, but providing completely dead-end numbers for deeply personal issues is likely to frustrate and confuse test-takers. Especially since people coming to this site are likely to be already upset in some way. I feel that plain-language interpretative information is needed for each of these tests. Such explanations exist at other prominent web sites that offer these tests (like the Mayo Clinic), and they can emphasize that no score is by itself diagnostic.
A link to this thread, while nice, is just not sufficient.
I'm being critical, so here's a hug. I love P-B, and I'm very glad you put so much into it.
-bhc
poster:badhaircut
thread:379885
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20040902/msgs/388790.html