Table 3.
Data collection lessons learned and strategies moving forward.
| PRAPARE question | Description of lesson learned | Strategies moving forward |
|---|---|---|
| Current work situation | • An open text field resulted in n = 793
“other” responses • After hand review found that data collectors would write options that could have fit into the original response categories on the PRAPARE o Retirees n = 183 should have been coded as unemployed, not seeking work o Suggest an addition of a category: disabled/in process filing disability, n = 425 after hand review |
• Train data collectors and healthcare personnel to select
appropriate response categories (i.e., select “unemployed, not
seeking work” for retirees) • Add a response “Disabled/Seeking Disability” |
| Gone without resources needed in the last year | • N = 364 marked as “other” • While some fell outside the provided categories, many could have been coded in a discrete data field o Child costs, n = 5 o Food, n = 9 o Housing, n = 25 (added as a response category) o Medical costs, n = 200 o Utilities, n = 3 o Transportation, n = 11 • Created category “reported general lack of money,” n = 40 • EMR allowed for multiple responses, but were not in raw data |
• Train data collectors and health care personnel to select
appropriate response category (i.e. select “Medical costs needs”
for those reporting needing help with expensive
medications) • Modify data query to allow for multiple responses to be downloaded in the back-end data • Consider adding USDA food insecurity questions to this section |
| Lack of transportation specific to medical needs or other necessities | • N = 93 marked as “other” o The PRAPARE question is worded—“Has lack of transportation kept you from medical appointments, meetings, work, or from getting things needed for daily living?” with the choices: • Have transportation • No transportation, kept from getting medical care • No transportation, kept from non-medical necessities o Some patients wanted to indicate no transportation in general which leads to a lot of “other” in the data |
• Modify the PRAPARE in future applications o Remove transportation from the resource question o Add a question that first asks “Do you lack transportation?” and then administer follow-up questions |
| Family Income | • 21% missing and 43% choose not to answer • Median income value is questionable due to the amount of missing and errors in recording • Patients may have confused yearly income with monthly income reporting |
• Supplement with area-level data that indicates neighborhood
SES • Consider adding the SHED questions that assess financial strain per Kusnoor et al. 11 • Clarify that patients report yearly versus monthly income |
| Stress | • Response categories do not make intuitive sense (not at all, a little bit, somewhat, quite a bit, very much) | • Modify to Likert scale (never, rarely, sometimes, often, always) |
PRAPARE: Protocol for Responding to and Assessing Patients’ Assets, Risks, and Experience; EMR: electronic medical record; USDA: US Department of Agriculture; SHED: Survey of Household Economics and Decision-Making.