URL:

http://chipts.ucla.edu/

Description:

CHIPTS is a research organization whose aim is to promote collaborative research and education about effective detection, prevention and treatment services for HIV. Their scope ranges from the society and community, to the individual. This group received a NIMH grant to do consulting on projects in these fields.

Types of Information or Instruments:

Assessment descriptions are concise, as they explain how the instrument may be used in an AIDS context, but also address reliability. References to the articles about each instrument are included.

Quantity of Instruments:

Names of approximately 100 instruments are organized alphabetically by topic.

Quality of Instrument Descriptions:

The internal links provide consistent scale information. External links, which are in italics, have varying amounts of information, and since they are on different sites, are inconsistent in content and format.

Quality of Psychometric Information:

There is limited and inconsistent psychometric information for the available scales. One type of internal consistency will be listed, but validity is rarely addressed.

Scale accessibility:

Scales are easy to obtain, either as downloadable PDF files or printable as presented in the web page.

Site provides actual scale items:

This site does have actual scale items or provides links to actual scale items.

User-friendly navigation:

Click on "Assessment Instruments" from the main page to get to a list of instruments. Links in italics will take you to another (external) site. Non-italicized links are within the CHIPTS site, however, they both will open in the frame. This may be confusing at first.

Other types of Information:

Upon further navigation, there is also information on focus groups, theoretical models, and several references to community health. The site also provides guidance on its core values: administrative, assessment, prevention, and evaluation.

Hints:

The information presented here is in a language suited to researchers familiar to assessment instruments, such as reliability and validity values.

Category:

Disease-specific Outcomes > HIV/AIDS