Experiences Leveraging Biostatistical Work on Nursing Projects Into Personal Research

• Activity Number: 600
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 2, 2012 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Consulting
• Author(s): George Knafl*+
• Companies: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Keywords: biostatistical consulting ; family research ; medication adherence ; MEMS caps ; nursing research

Abstract

I will present an overview of some nursing projects I have worked on and how the special needs of these projects stimulated my own personal research. One of the first nursing projects I worked on was a study of antiretroviral medication adherence for HIV-positive patients. Electronic adherence data were collected using Medication Event Monitoring System (MEMS) caps that recorded dates and times of all pill bottle openings. To analyze these data, I developed methods to group the data into counts/rates over disjoint times in each patient's study participation period, generate nonlinear Poisson models for adherence over time for these counts/rates, cluster estimated adherence patterns into adherence types (e.g., relatively consistent, increasing, or decreasing over time), and relate these types to available patient outcomes (e.g., viral loads and CD4 cell counts). This work led to several publications, presentations, and two NIH grants (a R01 and a R03). Other nursing projects in which I have been involved have led to work on analyzing family data, both cross-sectional and longitudinal, and development of a survey instrument for how families manage a childhood chronic condition.