Range Assessments

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Questions formulated from a study perspective can be very specific to that study. For example, one study might be interested in age ranges such as 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, etc. A study of teen smoking would probably find this question useless. This kind of question does not make a good Clinical Data Definition because it has limited reusability.

The Clinical Data Definition for such a question should be more specific, such as [Age when Commenced Smoking] so that the answer can be used in different situations. By asking for the specific age, rather than a range, any analysis program can easily categorize patients as needed by that study. Additionally, studies can harvest data from any source using the general purpose Clinical Data Definition.

The datatype of the value for this kind of assessment question should be a Physicial Quantity (PQ). The units should be constrained as appropriate. In this case, units would be years or perhaps months, although any time unit would be valid.

The value can also be validated; however, validation should only reject impossible (not unlikely) values. For example, selecting an age above the patient's current age would be impossible in this case, but 6 years old would only be unlikely (I hope), and thus should not be invalid. Questions such as age of first period do not need to have the answer validated to the female gender because the question itself would not apply to a male.