Evaluating the representativeness of a cohort study of low back pain: Using electronic health record data to make direct comparisons of study participants with non-participants from the study population

IF 4 2区医学 Q1 CLINICAL NEUROLOGY

Journal of Pain Pub Date : 2024-11-08 DOI:10.1016/j.jpain.2024.104730

Pradeep Suri MD, MS , Adrienne D. Tanus , Ian Stanaway , Hazel Scott , Hannah F. Brubeck , Bianca Irimia , Clinton J. Daniels , Mark P. Jensen , Sean D. Rundell , Andrew K. Timmons , Daniel Morelli , Patrick J. Heagerty

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Representativeness is an important component of generalizability. Few studies have rigorously examined the representativeness of randomized trials or observational studies of pain or musculoskeletal conditions with regards to a wide range of factors beyond age, sex, race, and ethnicity. We conducted the first study of a pain condition that uses individual-level data to directly compare the enrolled study sample to the population from which it was drawn. We used electronic health record data from the Veterans Affairs health system to compare participants in an observational study of low back pain (n = 417) with the study population of potentially eligible non-participants who were contacted about the study (n = 15,218). There were no statistically significant differences between participants and non-participants for most factors examined, and differences when present were of small or very small magnitude. Participants were more likely to be older (odds ratio [OR]=1.02 per each additional year of age [95 % CI 1.01–1.03], p < 0.001), women (OR=1.59 [95 % CI 1.26–2.01], p < 0.001), have had a prior diagnosis of lumbosacral radicular syndrome (OR=1.37 [95 % CI 1.08–1.74], p = 0.01), and report lower pain intensity (OR=0.96 per NRS point [95 % CI 0.93–1.00], p = 0.04). Current smokers (OR=0.54 [95 % CI 0.39–0.75], p < 0.001) and people of Asian descent (OR=0.62 [95 % CI 0.39–0.98], p < 0.001) were less likely to participate. This study illustrates an approach to directly compare research participants with non-participants from the study population. This approach can be considered as a standard method to examine the representativeness of study samples in pain research.

Perspective

This article illustrates how electronic health record data can be used to directly compare the representativeness of participants in a study of pain to the study population from which participants were selected. This approach should be considered as a standard method to examine the representativeness of study samples during reporting.

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评估腰背痛队列研究的代表性：利用电子健康记录数据对研究参与者和非研究参与者进行直接比较。

代表性是可推广性的重要组成部分。除了年龄、性别、种族和民族等广泛因素外，很少有研究对疼痛或肌肉骨骼状况的随机试验或观察性研究的代表性进行严格检查。我们首次对疼痛病症进行了研究，该研究使用了个人层面的数据来直接比较入组研究样本和抽取样本的人群。我们使用退伍军人事务卫生系统的电子健康记录数据，将腰背痛观察研究的参与者（n = 417）与研究人群（n = 15,218 ）进行了比较，研究人群是与研究相关的可能符合条件的非参与者。在大多数考察因素上，参与者和非参与者之间没有统计学意义上的显著差异，即使存在差异，差异程度也很小或非常小。参与者的年龄更大（年龄每增加一岁，几率比 [OR]=1.02 [95 % CI 1.01-1.03], p

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来源期刊

Journal of Pain 医学-临床神经学

CiteScore

6.30

自引率

7.50%

发文量

441

审稿时长

42 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of Pain publishes original articles related to all aspects of pain, including clinical and basic research, patient care, education, and health policy. Articles selected for publication in the Journal are most commonly reports of original clinical research or reports of original basic research. In addition, invited critical reviews, including meta analyses of drugs for pain management, invited commentaries on reviews, and exceptional case studies are published in the Journal. The mission of the Journal is to improve the care of patients in pain by providing a forum for clinical researchers, basic scientists, clinicians, and other health professionals to publish original research.