Versions Compared

Version Old Version 27 New Version 28
Changes made by

Alyssa Hill

Alyssa Hill

Saved on

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.
Info

Longitudinal projects provide collection of data over time in order to track changes and progress. Longitudinal projects are useful in the following situations:

  • Long Term Studies

  • Clinical Trials

  • Recruitment & Enrollment Combinations

  • Multi-Site Studies

  • Repeating Surveys

It is extremely important to give much consideration to the design, development and testing of your Longitudinal Project. Understanding reporting considerations & needs is critical. Thorough testing is essential for success.

INITIAL CONSIDERATIONS

Enabling longitudinal feature allows any form or survey to be reused over the course of time and provides opportunity to designate specific instruments at specific time points (events). Longitudinal instruments eliminate the need to recreate the same form for multiple time points. Instead, the form is created once and then assigned to various time points throughout the project. Examples of forms used in longitudinal mode include:

...

Panel
panelIconIdatlassian-warning
panelIcon:warning:
bgColor#FFEBE6

NOTE: You must EXPAND the below section(s) to view the full content. Click the (>) carrot to expand.

Basic steps to setup up a Longitudinal Project.

...

Expand

Link Instruments to relevant events

  1. From the Project Setup page, navigate to "Designate Instruments for My Events"

  2. Select "Begin Editing" button

  3. Click to place a checkbox on the grid for each instrument / form / survey that should be assigned to each specific event

  4. Click "Save"

  5. In order to ensure that other advanced features like reporting and data quality checks in REDCap work properly, always assign the first form to the first event. (i.e. Order your instruments appropriately)

  6. You can link and un-link events in your project during your project set-up and test. Once the project is in Production linking /unlinking events must be done by REDCap Administrator. Reason: You can lose data if you unlink an event.

6. Test, Test & Test

Expand

a. It is strongly recommended that you test your projects prior to moving to Production to ensure the project works as desired and reports are presented in the desired format with complete data.

b. Use test data as close to real as possible and simulate the workflow you intend to use.

c. Knowledge Article – Testing Your Project

...

Additional Considerations

  1. Best practice to always add Record ID to every arm to prevent REDCap issues, especially if using surveys

    1. Create a "single landing page" with just Record ID. Can be invisible to user with a "Thanks for Participating Page" with Submit to continue. See Knowledge Article Longitudinal Surveys

  2. Actions that can cause data loss in Longitudinal Projects:

    1. Deleting Events

    2. Deleting Arms

    3. Decoupling Forms from Events

  3. If you create additional forms once project is in Production,need to request REDCap support to link forms to Events.

  4. Give much consideration to User Rights. If you want to segregate data based on location but have a form that is common to both sites, a user with rights to that form will see data from both sites. Create Data Access Groups

  5. Branching logic in a Longitudinal Projectmust identify the Event, Arm and the field name.

    1. Classical Branching Equation:

      1. [field1] = '3'

      2. Longitudinal Branching Equation:

        1. Can cross both forms and events, so need to indicate event and field

        2. [event_3][field1] = '3'

  6. Survey Expiration

    1. Is server time, not what is on your computer

      1. Survey expiration takes all copies of the survey offline.

      2. Warning: If you have survey that is used multiple times in a longitudinal survey if you expire the survey after the first event, be aware that it will expire all the surveys in following events

  7. Save and return later

    1. The User Code is often lost and user can't find the code when they want to return to complete the survey.

      1. Alternative is to design shorter surveys and poll multiple times via automatic invites

  8. Deleting or Disabling a survey in Survey Settings.

    1. There are 2 "delete" buttons for any given project.

      1. 1 is in Online Designer – deletes entire form and data is lost

      2. 1 is in Survey Settings – reverts survey back to a form. Data is still available

  9. When defining Events it is important to think about the days offset and use an accurate representation in case you ever want to use scheduling

...