ArticleBMC medical research methodology2024
Missingness mechanisms and generalizability of patient reported outcome measures in colorectal cancer survivors - assessing the reasonableness of the "missing completely at random" assumption.
Article in BMC medical research methodology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Associations between perceived neighborhood environment and physical activity among breast cancer patients engaged in a physical activity program concomitant to cancer treatment: cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses in the DISCO trial (DiscoSpace).The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2026Trial
- E-Health Intervention for Fear of Cancer Recurrence: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2025Trial
- CAMONCO 2: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Open Dialogue About Complementary Alternative Medicine and Standard Care on Patients' Quality of Life.JCO oncology practice · 2025Trial
- Fear of cancer recurrence in long-term colorectal cancer survivors: a nationwide cross-sectional study.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2026Article
- Do non-responders of a geriatric screening questionnaire face lower one-year survival compared to responders? A retrospective cohort study.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Anticipating incomplete patient-reported outcomes in schizophrenia: a machine learning approach to predict the occurrence of missing data.Health and quality of life outcomes · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPatient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROM) provide important information, however, missing PROM data threaten the interpretability and generalizability of findings by introducing potential bias. This study aims to provide insight into missingness mechanisms and inform future researchers on generalizability and possible methodological solutions to overcome missing PROM data problems during data collection and statistical analyses.
methodsWe identified 10,236 colorectal cancer survivors (CRCs) above 18y, diagnosed between 2014 and 2018 through the Danish Clinical Registries. We invited a random 20% (2,097) to participate in a national survey in May 2023. We distributed reminder e-mails at day 10 and day 20, and compared Initial Responders (response day 0-9), Subsequent Responders (response day 10-28) and Non-responders (no response after 28 days) in demographic and cancer-related characteristics and PROM-scores using linear regression.
resultsOf the 2,097 CRCs, 1,188 responded (57%). Of these, 142 (7%) were excluded leaving 1,955 eligible CRCs. 628 (32%) were categorized as initial responders, 418 (21%) as subsequent responders, and 909 (47%) as non-responders. Differences in demographic and cancer-related characteristics between the three groups were minor and PROM-scores only marginally differed between initial and subsequent responders.
conclusionIn this study of long-term colorectal cancer survivors, we showed that initial responders, subsequent responders, and non-responders exhibit comparable demographic and cancer-related characteristics. Among respondents, Patient-Reported Outcome Measures were also similar, indicating generalizability. Assuming Patient-Reported Outcome Measures of subsequent responders represent answers by the non-responders (would they be available), it may be reasonable to judge the missingness mechanism as Missing Completely At Random.
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