Quality criteria valuable with slight modification

Terwee et al. are to be congratulated for developing such a clear outline for the use of quality criteria to assess measurements in systematic reviews of health status questionnaires [ [1] Terwee C.B. Bot S.D. de Boer M.R. van der Windt D.A. Knol D.L. Dekker J. et al. Quality criteria were proposed for measurement properties of health status questionnaires. J Clin Epidemiol. 2007; 60: 34-42 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (5740) Google Scholar ]. Having undertaken a number of systematic literature reviews of measures [ 2 Bausewein C. Farquhar M. Booth S. Gysels M. Higginson I.J. Measurement of breathlessness in advanced disease: a systematic review. Respir Med. 2007; 101: 399-410 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (186) Google Scholar , 3 Gruenewald D.A. Higginson I.J. Vivat B. Edmonds P. Burman R.E. Quality of life measures for the palliative care of people severely affected by multiple sclerosis: a systematic review. Mult Scler. 2004; 10: 690-704 Crossref PubMed Scopus (66) Google Scholar ] and having developed and validated measures [ [4] Hearn J. Higginson I.J. Development and validation of a core outcome measure for palliative care: the palliative care outcome scale. Qual Health Care. 1999; 8: 219-227 Crossref PubMed Scopus (433) Google Scholar ], it is extremely helpful to have such a clear exposition of issues that are important. It was particularly welcome to see the reference to item 7 on responsiveness (sometimes called sensitivity) to change. However, I believe there are two major and two minor modifications needed to their criteria. First, although the authors give a lengthy discussion of the importance of content validity, they have not referred to face validity. Although content validity is often similar to face validity, face validity is established by taking the views of those who you wish to measure or lay individuals who may be affected. Face validity is important in the assessment of quality of life and health status because it seeks the views of those who are most directly affected about the relevance of questions being asked them.