CommentaryCommon Data Elements for Research on Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health: Current Status and Future Development
Section snippets
Challenges to Measurement Consensus
It is easy to advocate common measurement approaches across TBI and PH, but many theoretical and practical obstacles stand in the way of their achievement. Moreover, even the desirability of measurement consensus is debatable if it stifles innovation or reduces the fit between an individual study's aims and the data elements used to achieve them.
Good researchers already select measures that are optimally suited to their research aims as well as the practical and financial constraints on data
The Meaning of “Common” Data Elements
Consideration of these factors reveals that the benefits of consensus and the tailoring of measurement to the precise nature of a study's aims and sample are inevitably in tension. Clearly, when the study aims, sample, and relevant outcomes are identical, it would behoove investigators to use comparable measures. Indeed, a multicenter clinical trial is the most perfect example of this, where each study site is, in a sense, a separate study, but the use of CDEs, definitions, and measurement
Common Data Elements: A Work in Progress
Neither the participants in the CDE process nor the readers of these articles will see this as a finished process. Measurement tools evolve, and our understanding of how best to use these tools will evolve as well.
The Way Forward
We have argued that the CDE effort needs an ongoing guiding hand in the form of collaborative agency support. Web-based resources and published recommendations will need to be revised as new research emerges. Should that guiding hand be modified or simply applied anew after the passage of time? Although we believe that the recent CDE effort was very productive, we also believe that there are some lessons to be learned from it and discuss 2 in particular: the organization of the work groups, and
Summary
This special section of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation provides the first set of recommendations intended to promote greater consistency and collaboration among researchers on TBI and psychological health regardless of funding source. This is an ambitious effort that has the potential to transform and improve research in these diverse, yet interrelated, fields. This is a work in progress that will require ongoing iterations to fill gaps and respond to new evidence. Related
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