Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: Nov 5, 2010

Present: Abby Crocker, Kairn Kelley, Ben Littenberg, Charlie MacLean, Carole McBride, Connie van Eeghen

1. Round Table:

a. Fall schedule to continue, but Connie will not be back to Workshop until 2011. See the bottom of this posting for a schedule of dates, holiday cancellations, and scholars leading discussion.

b. Spring schedule proposed around Thursdays or Fridays; Abby to send out Doodle poll; focus is Thursdays 9 – 10 or Thursdays 2:30 – 4:00 or Fridays 1:30 – 4:00 as likely choices.

c. Connie was allowed to experiment with a hands on presentation exercise and got great feedback

2. Abby’s Topic

a. More published studies about weaning babies born with drug dependency

b. Predicting which kids need help is a good study question that has current data to support it. The research question is ~ “What are the prenatal characteristics that could predict requiring treatment?” Or “What are the prenatal predictors of NAS among women using narcotics pre-natally?” This is novel and important (relevant).

i. Reasons this is valuable: more appropriate prenatal treatment, better quality of life for baby and parents

ii. Outcome variable: did babies need treatment (not Finnegan score)

iii. Predictor variables (based on lit review): gestational age at time of delivery, gestational age at onset of prenatal care, maternal opiate treatment type (methadone or bupenorphine), abuse of Schedule 2 drugs (or prescribed drugs that were not prescribed), infant’s sex, infant’s birth weight, breast feeding or breast milk in hospital, plan to continue to breast feed, parity (live births), gravity (pregnancies), and maternal age. Others to consider: partner/spouse, employment, smoking, ETOH use, institution of treatment, date.

iv. Analytic plan:

1. Univariate analysis on just the drugs: prescribed vs. street drugs (with or without interactions). This tests the hypothesis that the drugs matter and their potencies may be different.

2. Best prediction model: use the current data set to develop a model using any/all criterion/a to create it. For another study, test the model using a new data set OR separate the data sets into two groups and use one set to develop the model and the other to test it. The FAHC population =~550 patients; others may be available.

3. Talk to clinical experts to help sort out the most significant variables.

c. Caring for these kids is a separate question and a good future study

3. Next Workshop Meeting(s): Friday, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., at Given Courtyard Level 4

a. Nov 12: Abby to lead discussion (no Connie, Amanda, Rodger)

b. Nov 19: Abby to lead discussion (no Connie, Rodger)

c. Nov 26: Cancelled

d. Dec 3: Abby to lead discussion (no Connie, Rodger)

e. Dec 10: Abby to lead discussion (no Connie, Rodger)

f. Dec 17: Rodger to lead discussion (no Connie)

g. Dec 24: Cancelled

h. Dec 31: Cancelled

i. Future agenda to consider:

i. Rodger: Mixed methods article; article on Behavior’s Influence on Medical Conditions (unpublished)

ii. Future: Review of different types of journal articles (lit review, case study, original article, letter to editor…), when each is appropriate, tips on planning/writing (Abby)

iii. Future: Informed consent QI: Connie to follow up with Nancy Stalnaker, Alan Rubin will follow up with Alan Wortheimer or Rob McCauly

iv. Kairn will ask a librarian to join us for selected issues

4. Fellows document – to be reviewed in the future. We trialed Wednesday meeting times, which started May 5, 2010 and continued until August 25, 2010. We returned to Friday meetings on Sept 3, 2010

Recorder: Connie van Eeghen