Background
There is lack of standardisation in assessment tools used in geriatric medicine research, which makes pooling of data and cross-study comparisons difficult.
Methods
We conducted a modified Delphi process to establish measures to be included within core and extended datasets for geriatric medicine research in the United Kingdom (UK). This included three complete questionnaire rounds, and one consensus meeting. Participants were selected from attendance at the NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre meeting, May 2019, and academic geriatric medicine e-mailing lists. Literature review was used to develop the initial questionnaire, with all responses then included in the second questionnaire. The third questionnaire used refined options from the second questionnaire with response ranking.
Results
Ninety-eight responses were obtained across all questionnaire rounds (Initial: 19, Second: 21, Third: 58) from experienced and early career researchers in geriatric medicine. The initial questionnaire included 18 questions with short text responses, including one question for responders to suggest additional items. Twenty-six questions were included in the second questionnaire, with 108 within category options. The third questionnaire included three ranking, seven final agreement, and four binary option questions. Results were discussed at the consensus meeting. In our position statement, the final consensus dataset includes six core domains: demographics (age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status), specified morbidities, functional ability (Barthel and/or Nottingham Extended Activities of Daily Living), Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), cognition, and patient-reported outcome measures (dependent on research question). We also propose how additional variables should be measured within an extended dataset.
Conclusions
Our core and extended datasets represent current consensus opinion of academic geriatric medicine clinicians across the UK. We consider the development and further use of these datasets will strengthen collaboration between researchers and academic institutions.
Carly Welch, Daisy Wilson, Avan A. Sayer, Miles D. Witham & Thomas A. Jackson on behalf of the UK Geriatric Medicine Core Dataset Extended Working Group
Disease Category: Health care of older people
Disease Name:
Age Range: Unknown
Sex:
Nature of Intervention: Any, Non-surgical
- Clinical experts
- Researchers
- COS for clinical trials or clinical research
- Minimum dataset
- Consensus meeting
- Delphi process
- Survey
- Systematic review
An initial exploratory literature review of the literature was conducted to identify common themes included within prospective clinical studies within geriatric medicine research, and measures available. The results of this and the proposed minimum dataset were presented
at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) academic geriatric medicine event in May 2019. The results of the literature review, and discussion at the NIHR BRC Newcastle event were used to generate a questionnaire with broad responses. This questionnaire was distributed to all delegates who had attended the NIHR BRC meeting, and additional expert academic geriatricians. All measures that were suggested in Step 2 were included as options within the Step 3 focused questionnaire. Tis survey was distributed to everyone who had been invited to participate in Step 2. The responses from the Step 3 questionnaire were utilised to generate a further focused questionnaire in Step 4. If more than 80% of participants in Step 3 had considered an item core, then this item was proposed as a core item in Step 4, and participants were invited to express their agreement with this. Items that were considered not relevant to the minimum dataset (either core or extended option items) by more than 75% of participants in Step 3 were removed in Step 4. A consensus meeting was held virtually on November 5th 2020. Participants were invited via the same channels used to distribute the survey from Step 4. The results of earlier rounds were presented to all attendees, and each item was discussed until a consensus decision was made.