Delirium is an acute, transient, usually reversible, fluctuating disturbance in consciousness, attention, cognition, and perception. Delirium after cardiac operations is associated with increased morbidity, reduced cognitive functioning, increased short-term and long-term mortality, longer hospitalization and higher hospitalization cost. The diagnosis, prevention and treatment of delirium are of great importance for perioperative care of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Effective delirium screening tools are very helpful for the recognition and monitoring of delirium after cardiac surgery. In recent years, there has been many new strategies for the treatment, nursing care and prevention of delirium after cardiac surgery. This review focuses on the incidence, risk factors, diagnostic methods, treatment and preventive strategies of delirium after cardiac surgery.
Pragmatic randomized controlled trials can provide high-quality evidence. However, pragmatic trials need to frequently encounter the missing outcome data due to the challenges of quality assurance and control. The missing outcome could lead to bias which may misguide the conclusions. Thus, it is crucial to handle the missing outcome data appropriately. Our study initially summarized the bias structures and missingness mechanisms, and then reviewed important methods based on the assumption of missing at random. We referred to the multiple imputations and inverse probability of censoring weighting for dealing with missing outcomes. This paper aimed to provide insights on how to choose the statistical methods on missing outcome data.
ObjectiveTo examine statistical performance of different rare-event meta-analyses methods.MethodsUsing Monte-Carlo simulation, we set a variety of scenarios to evaluate the performance of various rare-event meta-analysis methods. The performance measures included absolute percentage error, root mean square error and interval coverage.ResultsAcross different scenarios, the absolute percentage error and root mean square error were similar for Bayesian logistic regression model, generalized mixed linear effects model and continuity correction, but the interval coverage was higher with Bayesian logistic regression model. The statistical performances with Mantel-Haenszel method and Peto method were consistently suboptimal across different scenarios.ConclusionsBayesian logistic regression model may be recommended as a preferred approach for rare-event meta-analysis.
Repeated measurement quantitative data is a common data type in clinical studies, and is frequently utilized to assess the therapeutic effects of the intervention measures at a single time point in clinical trials. This study clarifies the concepts and calculation methods for sample size estimation of repeated measurement quantitative data, in order to explore the research question of "comparing group differences at a single time point", from three perspectives: the primary research questions in clinical studies, the main statistical analysis methods and the definitions of the primary outcome indicators. Discrepancies in sample sizes calculated by various methods under different correlation coefficients and varying numbers of repeated measurements were examined. The study revealed that the sample size calculation method based on the mixed-effects model or generalized estimating equations accounts for both the correlation coefficient and the number of repeated measurements, resulting in the smallest estimated sample size. Secondly, the sample size calculation method based on covariance analysis considers the correlation coefficient and produces a smaller estimated sample size than the t-test. The t-test based sample size calculation method requires an appropriate approach to be selected according to the definition of the primary outcome measure. The alignment between the sample size calculation method, the statistical analysis method and the definition of the primary outcome measure is essential to avoid the risk of overestimation or underestimation of the required sample size.
ObjectiveTo explore the utilization of longitudinal data in constructing non-time-varying outcome prediction models and to compare the impact of different modeling approaches on prediction performance. MethodsClinical predictors were selected using univariate analysis and Lasso regression. Non-time-varying outcome prediction models were developed based on latent class trajectory analysis, the two-stage model, and logistic regression. Internal validation was performed using Bootstrapping resampling, and model performance was evaluated using ROC curves, PR curves, sensitivity, specificity and other relevant metrics. ResultsA total of 49 629 pregnant women were included in the study, with mean age of 31.42±4.13 years and pre-pregnancy BMI of 20.91±2.62kg/m2. Fourteen predictors were incorporated into the final model. Prediction models utilizing longitudinal data demonstrated high accuracy, with AUROC values exceeding 0.90 and PR-AUC values greater than 0.47. The two-stage model based on late-pregnancy hemoglobin data showed the best performance, achieving AUROC of 0.93 (95%CI 0.92 to 0.94) and PR-AUC of 0.60 (95%CI 0.56 to 0.64). Internal validation confirmed robust model performance, and calibration curves indicated a good agreement between predicted and observed outcomes. ConclusionFor the longitudinal data, the two-stage model can well capture the dynamic change trajectory of the longitudinal data. For different clinical outcomes, the predictive value of repeated measurement data is different.
With the establishment and development of regional healthcare big data platforms, regional healthcare big data is playing an increasingly important role in health policy program evaluations. Regional healthcare big data is usually structured hierarchically. Traditional statistical models have limitations in analyzing hierarchical data, and multilevel models are powerful statistical analysis tools for processing hierarchical data. This method has frequently been used by healthcare researchers overseas, however, it lacks application in China. This paper aimed to introduce the multilevel model and several common application scenarios in medicine policy evaluations. We expected to provide a methodological framework for medicine policy evaluation using regional healthcare big data or hierarchical data.