Daily Data Collection Research Articles

Daily data collection: A comparison of three methods

This paper compares three methods for daily data collection to examine the co‐occurrence of intoxication and unsafe sex at the incident level. Sexually transmitted disease clinic clients and sexually active college students were randomized to complete either written daily diaries, daily telephone interviews they initiated, or daily telephone interviews initiated by project staff, for a period of 4 weeks. The three methods are compared on rates of retention, number of days missed, number of items missed, and respondents' self‐assessments of ease and accuracy of their responses. Dropout rates were low in all conditions. Respondents who initiated daily phone calls had the highest rate of missing days, and those in the written diary condition had the highest rate of missed items.

DATA FEEDBACK SYSTEM

S26 INTRODUCTION: Data from an operating room information system (ORIS) indicated that only 26% of scheduled first cases start on-time. A recent report has indicated that data feedback systems are currently being introduced to improve medical and surgical outcomes. [1] The purpose of this study is to determine if the implementation of a daily data feedback system would increase the percentage of scheduled cases starting on-time. METHODS: The newly implemented data feedback system consisted of a daily data collection form which indicated the scheduled start time and actual start time for the first cases of the day. Other data included names of the attending anesthesiologist, attending surgeon, and the reason for delay (e.g. patient, anesthesiologist, surgeon, or nursing late). Within each category, detailed information was also obtained (e.g. premedication needed, no consent, equipment delays, etc.). This data collection form was posted on a public bulletin board located at the entrance to the PACU and near the surgical dictation station. Data was collected by the anesthesiologist. The ORIS data was analyzed before and after implementation of the new data feedback system. Statistical analysis was performed using Pearson Chi square test with p<0.05 considered significant. RESULTS: A total of 286 first cases scheduled in the Children's Hospital Operating Rooms were analyzed. All cases were elective ASA 1-3 patients aged 1 day to 15 years. Data were analyzed from the ORIS for 2 months prior to initiation of the new feedback system and compared to data obtained 2 months after implementation of the new data feedback system. As can be seen in Figure 1, there was a significant increase in the percentage of first scheduled cases that started on time (p=0.001) or were delayed only 1-15 minutes (p=0.04). There were no changes in delay times greater than 15 minutes.Figure 1: CHOR First Case Start TimesCONCLUSIONS: Introduction of a daily data feedback system can lead to increased efficiency of operating rooms.

The Use of Electronic Diaries in Respiratory Studies

Background—Electronic diary cards have advantages over paper diaries for daily collection of data on lung function and symptoms in patients with respiratory disorders. The suitability of a pen-based electronic diary (Apple MessagePad) for this purpose was assessed in a clinical trial setting.Methods—Two studies were carried out in patients with chronic obstructive airways disease: 1. An open randomized two-period crossover study comparing electronic and paper diaries in 22 clinic outpatients aged 18–70. Data were collected for four weeks on each type of diary, and 2. An open study in 37 patients in general practice aged 13–80. Data were collected for four weeks on electronic diaries only.Results—In Study 1, 59% of patients preferred the electronic diary and 18% preferred paper. Both paper and electronic diaries were found to be easy to use. There were fewer problematic data from the electronic diaries (0.24% of data points) compared with paper (5.6%), resulting in improved data reliability. There were mor...

Heavy rainfall, famine, and cultural response in the West African Sahel: the ‘Muda’ of 1953–54

One of the worst Sahel famines of the twentieth century was initiated by heavy rainfall in 1953. Famine-impelled household migration and elevated rates of morbidity and mortality were widespread. A famine triggered by heavy rains would present a serious challenge to contemporary early warning systems that rely on analysis of food prices and satellite-derived measures of vegetation. In the absense of frequent and extensive field reporting, an effective early warning system would require collection and analysis of daily rainfall data and the development of accurate Sahel climate-crop yield models.

The influence of positivistic thought on nineteenth century asylum nursing

The development of positivism, which had a considerable influence on the evolution of psychiatric thought and practice during the second half of the nineteenth century, is outlined. It was within this intellectual framework that figures such as Kraepelin, Bleuler and Schneider developed psychiatric nosologies and diagnostic criteria for certain mental illnesses. While there was little scientific evidence to support the claim that medical treatments had any beneficial effects on pyschiatric disorders, nevertheless psychiatric institutions were established in the mid-nineteenth century based on the medical model. Nurses were expected to observe, collect and report data on mental patients which were then presented to doctors for analysis. The intellectual climate of the asylums was such that nurses were not encouraged to question the scientific principles upon which the therapeutic regime was based, nor were they encouraged to seek a rationale for their daily observations and data collection. The specialized training for asylum nurses which was introduced towards the end of the nineteenth century did not give nurses their own professional identity, but rather reinforced the supremacy of medical knowledge in the care of the mentally ill. Trained nurses enhanced medical credibility, but did not progress care of the mentally ill because their training did not imply or encourage questioning of the positivistic basis of psychiatric treatment.

Daily morbidity records: recall and reliability.

Methodological issues concerning the collection and analysis of daily morbidity data in community studies in developing countries are discussed. The effects of recall period and inter-observer variation on symptom prevalence are considered in the context of a longitudinal study in The Gambia, in which prevalence fell by about half over 1-week's recall. In the same study, many infant-days were recorded separately on two occasions, allowing an assessment of reliability in this type of morbidity diary data. The implications of these findings both in terms of data quality and cost-effectiveness are discussed, with the conclusion that weekly interviews examining the previous week's morbidity on a day-by-day basis are operationally optimal.

Antibiotic Streamlining From Combination Therapy to Monotherapy Utilizing an Interdisciplinary Approach

Streamlining of antibiotic therapy from a more complex to a less complex regimen should reduce hospital costs. Utilizing the expertise of an infectious disease physician and clinical pharmacists, an antibiotic-streamlining program was implemented by (1) daily collection of data on patients receiving two or more parenteral antibiotics, (2) formulation of recommendations of cost-effective alternative therapy when clinically appropriate, (3) oral and/or written communication of the reasons for the recommendation to the patient's physician, (4) follow-up monitoring, and (5) determination of the cost savings by subtracting the actual cost of antibiotic therapy (including labor and supplies) from the cost of the initial regimen if it had been continued without alteration. Streamlining recommendations were made in 340 of 625 patients who were reviewed during the initial seven months. Cases that necessitated streamlining recommendations decreased from 98.6% during the first month to 54.4% during the seventh month, reflecting the educational impact of the program on prescribing habits. Recommendations were followed in 82.6% of the cases, of which 97.2% completed therapy with the streamlined regimen. The projected annual savings of the program was +107,637.

An assessment of the validity and discrimination of the intensive time‐series design by monitoring learning differences between students with different cognitive tendencies

AbstractIntensive time‐series designs for classroom investigations have been under development since 1975. Studies have been conducted to determine their feasibility (Mayer &amp; Lewis, 1979), their potential for monitoring knowledge acquisition (Mayer &amp; Kozlow, 1980), and the potential threat to validity of the frequency of testing inherent in the design (Mayer &amp; Rojas, 1982). This study, an extension of those previous studies, is an attempt to determine the degree of discrimination the design allows in collecting data on achievement. It also serves as a replication of the Mayer and Kozlow study, an attempt to determine design validity for collecting achievement data. The investigator used her eighth‐grade earth science students, from a suburban Columbus (Ohio) junior high school. A multiple‐group single intervention time‐series design (Glass, Willson, &amp; Gottman, 1975) was adapted to the collection of daily data on achievement in the topic of the intervention, a unit on plate tectonics. Single multiple‐choice items were randomly assigned to each of three groups of students, identified on the basis of their ranking on a written test of cognitive level (Lawson, 1978). The top third, or those with formal cognitive tendencies, were compared on the basis of knowledge achievement and understanding achievement with the lowest third of the students, or those with concrete cognitive tendencies, to determine if the data collected in the design would discriminate between the two groups. Several studies (Goodstein &amp; Howe, 1978; Lawson &amp; Renner, 1975) indicated that students with formal cognitive tendencies should learn a formal concept such as plate tectonics with greater understanding than should students with concrete cognitive tendencies. Analyses used were a comparison of regression lines in each of the three study stages: baseline, intervention, and follow‐up; t‐tests of means of days summed across each stage; and a time‐series analysis program. Statistically significant differences were found between the two groups both in slopes of regression lines (0.0001) and in t‐tests (0.0005) on both knowledge and understanding levels of learning. These differences confirm the discrimination of the intensive time‐series design in showing that it can distinguish differences in learning between students with formal cognitive tendencies and those with concrete cognitive tendencies. The time‐series analysis model with a trend in the intervention was better than a model with no trend for both groups of students, in that it accounted for a greater amount of variance in the data from both knowledge and understanding levels of learning. This finding adds additional confidence in the validity of the design for obtaining achievement data. When the analysis model with trend was used on data from the group with formal cognitive tendencies, it accounted for a greater degree of variance than the same model applied to the data from the group with concrete cognitive tendencies. This more conservative analysis, therefor, gave results consistent with those from the more usual linear regression techniques and t‐tests, further adding to the confidence in the discrimination of the design.