Week 6: Full Text Read and Data Extraction cont.

For this week, I continued to focus on doing full text reads and coding studies, or extracting the relevant data. During my full text reads, I continued screening out studies that I deemed not in the scope of my question or containing the necessary data I needed for my analysis. For example, one of the studies mentioned that the intervention group had seen lower rates of readmission, and since the standard definition of readmission rates in most studies seems to be measured at 30 days, I included it past the abstract screening despite noting that outcomes were assessed at 3 and 6 months after the trial began. I had hoped that the study might continue or have measured readmission rates at the 30 day mark, but after doing a full text read, I had to exclude it since it did not include the information I needed. Another significant reason is that quite a few studies include or group more than one intervention in their experiment. Instead of just simply a visual discharge method as the intervention, they may also include follow up calls, which I classify as a different intervention that I would like to measure the effects of. Since there is no way to differentiate the impacts of the two, I cannot include the study. 

The data extraction is also much more difficult and tedious than I suspected, even after warnings from Dr. Hight and Mr. Ahmad. I feel as if it is best practice to also record explanatory variables as well for potential later uses. This means including characteristics of the study group such as location, age, and disease type. This could allow me later on to investigate if there is a significant relationship between patient type and readmissions beyond discharge methods. For example, perhaps older patients prefer or are more comfortable with direct human interaction and so the use of a teach back method could potentially be much more effective than the use of electronic/video formats, and vice versa for younger patients. While I have not fleshed out exactly how this may work, I want to be prepared, and so I am trying my best to note all this down, but it requires significantly more reading and thought for each study.