[Roaming through methodology. XXI. How to arrive at a weighed total score of separate items of a questionnaire]

In medical research the responses of patients to a number of items are often combined into a summary measure or total score for a more general patient characteristic, such as mobility. Clinical and statistical criteria exist for determining the weight of each question in the total score. The choice of weights may affect the differences between patients. The total score is often analysed statistically as if it had interval level of measurement, thereby allowing conclusions about the size of differences between patients, but it has merely an ordinal level. The incorrectness of the interval assumption may also affect differences between patients or patient groups. Finally, differences between patients are less dependent on the weighting of the items and on the assumption of an interval scale as the total score is based on more homogeneous items. Standard statistical software contains statistical methods for determining the homogeneity as well as the weights.