Database Digest

FEATURED DATABASE:
Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HaPI)

If you are a practitioner or researcher looking for measurement tools, go to HaPI (Health and Psychosocial Instruments), located in the Additional Health Databases section of
E-Databases on the Library website.

HaPI collects information on measurement instruments (questionnaires, index measures, rating scales, tests, etc.) in the health fields, psychosocial sciences, and organizational behavior field. HaPI can be used to identify research projects that have used specific types of measurement instruments.

Examples of when to use HaPI:
Find the citation for a research instrument you’ve already identified.
Find sample research instruments you can use to see what others have done and adapt to your needs. Track the history of an instrument that has been used or modified over time by other researchers. Determine if researchers in your field or others are doing work similar to yours.

HaPI is part of the Ovid suite of databases, and can be searched from both on- and off-campus (using ALADIN or VPN). To perform a basic search, enter a keyword or phrase in the search box. Boolean operators (AND/OR/NOT) or the COMBINE feature can be used to combine terms. You may also search for instruments using specific fields including title, author, validity and reliability, subscale titles, and number of questions (under AUTHOR, TITLE and SEARCH FIELD icons).

Results usually include an abstract about the instrument and provide information on instrument design and appropriate use. Abstracts may also include contact information for obtaining copies of some instruments from Behavioral Measurement Database Services (BMDS) for a fee. BMDS availability can be used as a search limit (under LIMIT icon). Other instruments may simply require author permission for use. Specific library reference tools can be used to locate author contact information.

Searchers can also limit results to obtain a bibliography of commercial test publishers (use LIMIT icon and SOURCE CODE feature) to find specific publisher contact information to purchase test instruments.

For assistance with HaPI, contact the Reference Desk via phone (202-994-2850), email (library@gwumc.edu), or visit the Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library to speak to a Reference Librarian.