Entering Results: The Measure Type Field in the Outcome Measure Data Tables
Entering Results: Measure Type
Dec 10, 2020When you enter your results data that you collected for your outcome measures into the Outcome Measure Data Tables, you’ll need to specify a “Measure Type”. The Measure Type is the type of data (e.g. count of something, mean value, etc.) for the outcome measure. It might even be specified in your Outcome Measure title or description.
The options for Measure Type are:
- Count of Participants
- Mean
- Median
- Least Squares Mean
- Geometric Mean
- Geometric Least Squares Mean
- Number
- Count of Units
If you specify a Measure Type of central tendency, like a mean, you’ll also need to specify and enter a measure of dispersion, such as “Standard Deviation” or “Full Range”.
Here’s an example of an Outcome Measure data table with results data entered. You can see that the Measure Type of “Mean” makes sense for the kind of data being described in the Outcome Measure description. We would expect to see a measure of central tendency with a measure of dispersion for something like “Change in Bone Level”.
Measure Type Pitfalls
For this kind of data, a Measure Type of “Number” or “Count of Participants” wouldn’t make sense. It can be tempting to enter “Number” as the Measure Type and then just enter your data, but unfortunately, this would be rejected during QC review.
The Measure Type must be consistent with the description and expectations for the type of data described in your Outcome Measure Title and Description. If you have an Outcome Measure Title or Description that specifies “Mean change in HAM-D Scores from Baseline” your Measure Type must be specified as “Mean” in order to be consistent with that title/description. If the Measure Type is inconsistent with information you entered elsewhere, the record will be rejected with a QC comment:
Major Issue: The Measure Type does not appear to be accurate.
To resolve this, make sure that you are entering a Measure Type that makes sense for the type of data you have described in your Outcome Measure Title and Description.