ABSTRACT
Interpretation or interpretability of measures of perceived health has often fallen to the tasks of minimally important differences or more recently thresholds depicting a patient-acceptable symptom state. It seems that a key factor in moving forward in the interpretation of measures of perceived health will be to be open to relooking at the concept and context of things like the minimal clinically important difference (MCID) or thresholds of meaning. Often there seems to be a tension placed between the use of perceived health outcomes at a group level and their use at an individual level. Opening the measurement of health perception up to the challenges of interpreting change, making valid cross national comparisons of health, and making health policy decisions risks rendering the perceptions of these instruments as of being of little value. However, not picking up the challenge of dealing with the issues posed by the context of use of the instruments would be a far greater risk.
