The goal of the Patient-Reported Outcomes, Survey and Population Research (PROSPR) facility is tosupport the assessment of patient-reported outcomes and other behavioral outcomes in studies that spanthe continuum of research at MDACC. The PROSPR core assists investigators with multiple aspects ofdesigning and implementing Patient Reported Outcome (PRO) data. The PROSPR core offers researchsupport to investigators by maintaining a library of questionnaires, designing data collection procedures forPRO and behavioral studies, providing data collection services, (including face-to-face interviews orquestionnaire administration in the clinic, telephone interviewing, and mailed surveys) and providing efficientdata entry of the collected PRO data. The PROSPR data management team develops information systemsto assist investigators in managing study participants and data. The team also develops recruitment andparticipant tracking databases, creates data entry databases for PRO questionnaire data that have doubleentry systems for accuracy checking, as well as built-in range and validity checks, and provides analysisdatasets for project statisticians, which includes cleaning and scoring the data. The data management teamcan create tools for automating the assignment of participants to study conditions, for a simple randomizationor a form of adaptive randomization called minimization, which is similar to stratification. The PROSPR corefacility is housed in 688 square feet of office space in the Cancer Prevention Building within the Departmentof Behavioral Science. The facility has 9 staff members, which include the director, co-director, coremanager, 2 research coordinators, a statistical analyst, and 3 data managers. Over the past 4 years, thePROSPR core has delivered over 9,400 hours of service to 87 users, of which 47% have been peerreviewedfunded. In this period, the PROSPR core has provided assistance to 15 programs; Behavioral andHealth Disparities accounted for 56% of the utilization, followed by GU, Gynecological, Gl and BreastCancers which account for 24%. In the future, the PROSPR core intends to 1) offer web-based surveys, andcomputer adaptive testing (CAT) as the technology becomes available; 2) to more fully utilize CaBIG, whichis expanding to include more population science research and; 3) to develop training opportunities forinvestigators and research staff to increase their skills and knowledge related to research involving PROdata.
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