Objectives: The Patient‐Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Health Organization has compiled and calibrated item banks for various domains in the United States, and these item banks have been translated into Dutch language.
Methods: The item banks for Anxiety and Depression have been administered in two samples, one drawn from the Dutch general and one drawn from the Dutch clinical population. The aim of this study was to investigate the appropriateness of the official PROMIS item parameters for these item banks that have been estimated based on data collected in the United States for use in the Netherlands. For both domains, we determined the fit of U.S. item parameters, the effect on individual domain scores and levels, the effect on correlations with full item bank totals, and the effect on classification accuracies of adaptive test scores for diagnoses of anxiety and mood disorders.
Results: The results showed that especially in the clinical population sample, fit appeared to be problematic for many items. However, simulations revealed that both sets of item parameters (official PROMIS vs. unique Dutch) perform nearly equally well in practice.
Conclusion: We tentatively conclude that the official PROMIS item parameters can be used for scaling respondents in the Netherlands.
Keywords: PROMIS; Real Data Simulation (RDS); anxiety; computerized adaptive tests (CATs); depression.