Glossary Term
Thresholds of Meaning
Values or ranges of scores that provide a meaningful interpretation of an instrument’s results. They help determine what a score, or a change in score, means for an individual and whether it represents an important change or a meaningful state.
Thresholds of meaning may apply to change over time, such as the Minimal Important Difference (MID), or to a state at a particular point in time, such as a Patient Acceptable Symptom State (PASS).
For change to be interpreted as meaningful, it should be distinguished from measurement error and reflect a level of change considered important or relevant. OMERACT favors anchor-based approaches and the use of multiple anchors to build confidence in estimated thresholds.
Examples
On a 0 to 10 pain scale, research may establish that a decrease of 2 points represents an important improvement for patients. A patient whose pain decreases from 7 to 4 has exceeded this threshold, helping interpret the change as meaningful rather than simply a numerical difference.