HERC Seminar: Dealing with missing quality of life data in clinical trials

Speaker:

Dr Shona Fielding, Institute of Applied Health Sciences, University of Aberdeen

Abstract

Missing data is common place in most studies and in particular with quality of life data, the reason it is missing is often to do with the quality of life itself. The talk will discuss methods for dealing with missing data and how different approaches of dealing with it may affect trial conclusions. While the content is focussed on quality of life the principles apply to other types of outcomes. I will also report on a review of imputation use in clinical trials, and how that use has changed over the last decade.

Biography

Shona is a lecturer in medical statistics at University of Aberdeen since 2009. Prior to that she had a CSO Research Training Fellowship which funded her PhD, the topic of this talk. Currently Shona is working on the statistical analysis of a variety of research projects including clinical trials and cohort studies. Shona is increasingly getting involved in studies involving in data linkage in Scotland and beyond. The main clinical areas that Shona does research in are respiratory (particularly COPD) and impact of rurality on cancer diagnosis and outcomes. Shona also contributes to statistical teaching within the Institute of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Aberdeen.