NURS 414 Nursing Research: Research Instruments - Online Sources

Research instruments are scales, questionnaires, surveys, inventories, tests  or tools used in qualitative and quantitative research to measure or assess a variable or information of interest..

Selecting an appropriate instrument for your research topic is challenging.

Some factors to consider:

• does the tool measure the variable(s) you want to measure
• has the tool been used successfully (normed) on your population of interest
• does the tool have acceptable reliability and validity

• Some research instruments are published and commercially available.  In this case, you must purchase the instrument from the publisher.  In many cases the tests must be returned to the publisher for scoring.
• Some instruments are unpublished and you must contact the author or creator of the instrument to obtain permission to use the instrument.  Locating the author or creator can be difficult.
• Some instruments may be found in journal articles, dissertations, in published or online compilations.  Unless explicitly stated on the resource that the instrument is free to use without permission, you should contact the author or creator for permission to use the instrument.

• Research Instruments Developed, Adapted or Used by the Stanford Patient Education Research Center
  Self-administered scales in English and Spanish for research subjects with chronic diseases. You may use any of these scales at no cost without permission.

• Rand Health Surveys and Tools
  All of the surveys are public documents, available without charge.
• APN Data Collection Toolkit
  Information about data collection tools used in APN research in the areas of Role Development, Role Implementation, and Role Evaluation
• Dr. William E. Snell, Jr.'s Assessment Instruments
  Includes complete instruments and scoring information
• Assessment Instruments in Mental Health - The SAMHSA-HRSA Center for Integrated Health Solutions (CIHS) promotes the development of integrated primary and behavioral health services to better address the needs of individuals with mental health and substance use conditions, whether seen in specialty behavioral health or primary care provider settings.\
• Stroke Assessment Scales
• Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Sciences - Repository of more than 500 instruments that can be used to collect data for social sciences research

The Health Literacy Toolshed is an online database of health literacy measures. The site contains information about measures, including their psychometric properties, based on a review of the peer-reviewed literature