HaPI is a database that provides access to information on approximately 15,000 measurement instruments (i.e. questionnaires, interview schedules, checklists, coding schemes, rating scales, etc.) in the fields of health and psychosocial sciences.

The full-text of the instruments are not included in the database; however, HaPI can be used to:

• Discover what instruments exist;
• Determine the availability of reliability and validity evidence;
• Track the history of an instrument over time;
• See what other instruments have already developed in your field of study;
• Locate ordering information for a known instrument.

Information in the database is abstracted from hundreds of leading journals covering health sciences and psychosocial sciences. Additionally, instruments from industrial/organizational behavior and education are included.

(Source)

Note: Tracking down the full text of unpublished instruments is not always easy. Some journal articles, even those listed as primary sources in HAPI, do not contain the full text of the instrument, as authors and publishers do not always make them available in their entirety. While many will have full instruments in the articles, others will direct readers to supplementary websites, or ask them to contact the authors. Some will contain references in the body of the article methodology to the scales used, with references for finding them. Pay attention to any copyright or other use restrictions on these instruments.

SOURCE TYPES

• Primary Sources in HAPI are original articles where the test or instrument was first published. These articles may contain the full text of the instrument.

• Secondary Sources are articles published later that used, revised, or excerpted, or commented on an instrument. These articles rarely contain the full text of an entire instrument; however, they are useful as finding aids and contain citations to locating the full instrument.

SEARCHING

• Select Health and PsychoSocial Instruments from the list of Ovid databases.
• Type search terms for your topic in the search box.
• Use the Limits to make your search more specific. For example, you might limit your search to Primary Sources, sources in English, or sources published within a certain time frame.
• Use the Search History to return to previous searches.

RESULTS

Each result will include title of the instrument, the authors, the source code (primary or secondary), the source, language, abstract, descriptors, and year. The abstract is intended to provide a short description of the instrument to help you decide if it would be useful in your research.

Health and Psychosocial Instruments does not include the full text of the instruments described. It provides citation information that you can use to locate sources within the library's collection.

First, find the Source information on a record in Health and Psychosocial Instruments. Then, look up the journal in that citation in the library catalog. Note that Health and Psychosocial Instruments is not compatible with Link to Article, so you will not see that search option. However, you can accomplish the same thing by checking the catalog for journal holdings.

This example is the record for an instrument called Life Events Inventory. To find the article for this instrument, look up Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in the catalog, then find volume 67 (1994).