ArticleQuality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation2024
Relationship between reasons for intermittent missing patient-reported outcomes data and missing data mechanisms.
Article in Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Characterizing heterogeneity in health-related quality of life trajectories in coronary artery disease: a longitudinal latent Markov analysis.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
- Patient reported outcomes in the FDA approved drugs for systemic rheumatic diseases (2013-2024).Health and quality of life outcomes · 2025Review
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Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeNon-response (NR) to patient-reported outcome (PRO) questionnaires may cause bias if not handled appropriately. Collecting reasons for NR is recommended, but how reasons for NR are related to missing data mechanisms remains unexplored. We aimed to explore this relationship for intermittent NRs.
methodsPatients with multiple myeloma completed validated PRO questionnaires at enrolment and 12 follow-up time-points. NR was defined as non-completion of a follow-up assessment within seven days, which triggered contact with the patient, recording the reason for missingness and an invitation to complete the questionnaire (denoted "salvage response"). Mean differences between salvage and previous on-time scores were estimated for groups defined by reasons for NR using linear regression with clustered standard errors. Statistically significant mean differences larger than minimal important difference thresholds were interpreted as "missing not at random" (MNAR) mechanism (i.e. assumed to be related to declining health), and the remainder interpreted as aligned with "missing completely at random" (MCAR) mechanism (i.e. assumed unrelated to changes in health).
resultsMost (7228/7534 (96%)) follow-up questionnaires were completed; 11% (802/7534) were salvage responses. Mean salvage scores were compared to previous on-time scores by reason: those due to hospital admission, mental or physical reasons were worse in 10/22 PRO domains; those due to technical difficulties/procedural errors were no different in 21/22 PRO domains; and those due to overlooked/forgotten or other/unspecified reasons were no different in any domains.
conclusionIntermittent NRs due to hospital admission, mental or physical reasons were aligned with MNAR mechanism for nearly half of PRO domains, while intermittent NRs due to technical difficulties/procedural errors or other/unspecified reasons generally were aligned with MCAR mechanism.
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