PRO Consulting Scientists Author Two Peer-Reviewed Publications

Highlighting Patient Reported Data and Psychometric Equivalence of Paper and Computerized Assessments

PITTSBURGH – June 3, 2008 – PRO Consulting®, the team of acknowledged experts in implementing methods for collecting patient-reported symptoms data in a regulated environment, today announced the publication of two peer-reviewed articles by their scientists in leading industry journals.

Dr. Arthur Stone, PRO Consulting senior scientific consultant and distinguished professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stony Brook University, co-authored “Assessment of Pain: A Community-based Diary Survey in the USA” in the May 2008 issue of The Lancet. This article reviews the findings of a community-based telephone survey that assessed the proportion of time people were in pain and its severity, at randomly selected times in a representative sample of individuals in the USA. The results of this landmark survey, featured on TIME.com, demonstrate how Americans experience pain, and include new findings about the differences in pain between socioeconomic classes, education levels, age and gender.

“For the first time we have a detailed view of the daily pain experienced by the American people,” Dr. Stone said. “The study also demonstrates that technologies that capture real-time or near real-time data are practical for tracking the health of a population.”

PRO Consulting scientists Dr. Chad Gwaltney, Dr. Alan Shields and Dr. Saul Shiffman authored “Equivalence of Electronic and Paper-and-Pencil Administration of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures: A Meta-Analytic Review” in the March/April 2008 issue of Value in Health, the official journal of the International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. The authors used meta-analysis to summarize more than 275 published comparisons between computerized and paper PROs. The analysis showed that computerized scores closely matched those obtained from paper and pencil administration of the same questionnaire.

"An extensive body of evidence indicates that paper- and computer-administered PROs are typically psychometrically equivalent," Dr. Gwaltney said. "This allays the concern some people have had about shifting from paper-based to computer-based assessment. By suggesting that there is no need to re-validate questionnaires when moving from paper to computer, it removes one of the last barriers to widespread use of computerized assessments such as electronic diaries."

For additional information on publications by PRO Consulting scientists, please visit http://www.patientreported.com/articles-publications.

About PRO Consulting
PRO Consulting, a division of invivodata, inc., provides consulting services to help clinical research teams effectively develop, execute, and document patient reported outcome (PRO) strategies to support their clinical research objectives. The PRO Consulting team has more than 140 years of cumulative experience in psychometrics, PRO study design, migrating and validating electronic solutions to collect PRO data, and has extensive experience working with the FDA and other regulatory bodies. For more information please visit http://www.patientreported.com.

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