Abstract
The DHAIR software system is a database-driven, web-based survey platform. It implements the delivery of survey instruments in packaged assessments, creation and editing of those assessments, researcher access to the results of the survey application, and a flexible authorization framework.
Survey object hierarchy
Each assessment is a combination of one or more instruments. These instruments can be shared between multiple assessments, so common instruments only need to be defined once. Each instrument is made up of a series of pages. Each page can contain one or more questions, and each question can contain one or more possible responses. Responses can be any one of the following user interface elements: radio buttons, checkboxes, text boxes, yes and no buttons, and combinations of radio button and check-boxes with text boxes. User elements have been optimized for touch screen interfaces.
Storage and display
All survey content, including text, formatting options, and assessment structure is stored in the database. When outputted to the screen, the text associated with each object is always treated as HTML. This allows highly customized presentations such as the inclusion of images or even video clips.
A series of pre-defined substitution functions are provided, allowing such things as patient name and birth date to be easily inserted. These can be embedded in any of the survey objects. In addition, installations can define dynamically declared functions to provide customized substitution capabilities. This can be used to provide tailored output to patients based on their answers, or to randomize study group enrollment at a specific point of the assessment.
Entire instruments or specific pages can be configured to be shown only if certain conditions are met. A variety of pre-defined conditional functions are provided, such as checking that it is the patient's first survey session or that they have answered positively to the consent form. A system of dynamically declared functions, similar to that used for substitution, is also provided for local customization.
Utilities
DHAIR also provides a web application for creating instruments, editing them, and linking them together into assessments. Content formatting options can also be defined here, such as limiting navigation arrows, changing the orientation of response options, or specifying multiple columns for layout.
A research data access tool is provided as a way for researchers to download granular data from the database for subsequent statistical. The data access tool provides a basic overview of patients enrolled and recent sessions. The researcher can then choose a date range and look at a variety of views of the data. All views can be returned as HTML or delimited text files to make it easy to import into an analysis package.
Access
Authentication is currently based on the University of Washington authentication system, but web server based authentication system could be used instead. For other projects, we have implemented both local authentication groups with web-based administration and Federated authentication domains shared between institutions.
All authorization is implemented within DHAIR itself, which each user being granted one or more of 5 roles. These roles range from a ‘user’ role which is limited to completing assessments to the ‘admin’ role which can add new instruments to the assessment and download data using the data access tool.
Current Uses
The DHAIR software system is currently being used by a number of funded projects at the University of Washington. These projects are helping to refine the system toward a robust web-based survey platform.