Mari Thurgate, MSI
Health Sciences Librarian

Overview

Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HaPI) is a subscription-based, web-based bibliographic database on the EBSCOhost platform of behavioral measurement instruments from journals in the health sciences, psychosocial sciences, and the fields of education and organizational behavior. It provides records on testing instruments of all kinds: checklists, coding schemes, indexes, interview schedules, projective techniques, questionnaires, rating scales, surveys, tasks, tests, vignettes, and scenarios. HaPI can be used by researchers looking for validated tools in their work or students wishing to learn more about tools used in studies they read.

The 190,000 records each contain the title, acronym, authors, language, index terms, and references. Some also contain a description of the tool, what it measures, the population the tool was designed for, reliability, subscales, and more. HaPI is an index of Instruments and does not contain the full text of the instrument, but they can be purchased through Behavioral Measurement Database Services (BMDS) for a fee.

Features/Functionality

HaPI is on the familiar EBSCOhost platform and has the capability of linking to full text available in other EBSCO products that an institution subscribes to. Users have the ability to search just HaPI or all of their institution’s EBSCO subscriptions in one search. The search interface will be familiar to those who have previously used other EBSCO products.

There are 18 fields that are searchable within HaPI and 32 total informational fields. When a field isn’t specified, HaPI searches title, author, abstract, subscale, and subjects. A few of the more unique fields that can be searched in HaPI are the acronym of a test title, the total number of questions in an instrument, subscale titles, and reliability and validity, which rate the test on several aspects with yes or no results. A search can also be limited to just results from the latest quarterly update, items available for purchase through BMDS, or primary sources. After a search is conducted, subject, publication title, and language can be used to further limit the results.

HaPI uses Boolean operators, AND, OR, and NOT to join search terms. Without parentheses, a search is conducted from left to right. When using parentheses, the terms inside are searched first, which allows the searcher control of the execution. It’s particularly helpful when defining multiple concepts using several terms. The search history can be used to combine previous searches using AND as well as OR. After creating a personal account, alerts can be created to automatically notify a user when new content matching their search is added to HaPI.

Business Model

HaPI is suitable for institutions with programs in medicine, nursing, public health, psychology, social work, communication, and sociology. It offers several subscription pricing options. Institutions can choose 1, 5, 10, or 15 simultaneous users, or unlimited access. More information and requests for a free trial are available at: https://www.ebscohost.com/academic/health-and-psychosocial-instruments-hapi.

Breakthrough

HaPI is a great resource for researchers, students, and clinicians looking to locate information on measurement tools. It provides information on each tool’s use and frequently provides a means to locate the creator or purchase the tool from Behavioral Measurement Database Services. Copyright permission is required to use any tool indexed in HaPI.