Item Generation for Questionnaires: The Medium May Determine the Message

The first phase in the construction of a quality of life questionnaire is usually compiling a set of potential items for inclusion in the questionnaire. The preferred method of item generation is, inmost cases, direct solicitation from individuals, usually from focus groups or semistructured interviews. The authors' experience in developing a disease-specific questionnaire for osteoporosis in which the same women were asked to respond in both settings resulted in unique items from both. The type of items and the problems that women were willing to express differed, however, between the two modes. Investigators may want to employ both individual and group interviews in order to identify as many quality of life deficits as possible.