A step-by-step approach for selecting an optimal minimal important difference
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Researchers have proposed that the minimal important difference (MID), the smallest change or difference that patients perceive as important, could aid the interpretation of patient reported outcomes measure (PROM) scores. When multiple MIDs for a given PROM differ substantially, the selection of an optimal MID to aid interpretation could prove challenging. This article describes a systematic, step-by-step selection approach developed to resolve this problem. An optimal MID, at least, should be methodologically sound and should, as far as possible, match the intended application contexts. Therefore, this approach is geared to explaining the variability of the MIDs for the PROM of interest by the methodological rigor and contextualised factors influencing the MID application, and where appropriate, provides one optimal MID (ie, the median of the selected estimates in a relatively narrow range).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.146 | 0.326 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.015 | 0.003 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".