Medizinische Informatik, Statistik und Dokumentation

RESEARCH FOCUS PATIENT-REPORTED OUTCOMES

PI: Alexander Avian

Focus: Patient-Reported Outcomes (PRO) are used to consider the patient’s perspective in everyday medical practice as well as in research and quality management projects. Our research interests are both the development of new PROs and the adaptation of existing ones (translation, expansion), as well as dealing with aspects that lead to a systematic distortion of the patients' answers (e.g. order effects, memory effects). Both methods of classical and probabilistic test theory are used.

Network: The main focus of cooperation within Med Uni Graz are the Institute for General Practice and Evidence-Based Health Services Research, Clinic of Anesthesiology for Cardiovascular Surgery and Intensive Care Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology and the Division of Medical Psychology, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapeutic Medicine. Further cooperation exist with the Geriatric Health Centers of the City of Graz and Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

Projects

Pain Days

  • After day surgery, the same standards of pain management should be applied as in children treated as inpatients. However, this is more difficult because the parents are responsible for their children’s pain management at home. Therefore, a questionnaire is being developed with the help of which pain and its accompanying aspects can be precisely measured. If postoperative pain and the accompanying aspects are better understood, operations associated with high pain can be recognized and the standardized pain management can be adapted for them.
  • Duration: 2019 – 2025
  • Funded by: Austrian National Bank
  • Project partner: Clinic of Anesthesiology for Cardiovascular Surgery and Intensive Care Medicine, Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Surgery

COVI-Prim: Monitoring of primary care in family practices during the COVID-19 pandemic

  • In this international project, the challenges that general practitioners encounter during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they are dealt with are analyzed. For this purpose, at first a basic survey was carried out and  afterwards short online surveys were carried out at weekly intervals. In this way, the dynamic course of the situation could also be taken into account.
  • Duration: 2020 – ongoing
  • Funded by: Medical University of Graz and participating scientific institutions
  • Project partners: Institute for General Practice and Evidence-Based Health Services Research / Medical University of Graz, Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg, University of Innsbruck and Universities and academic institutions in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Slovenia and Australia.

Patient activation in chronic diseases

  • Since chronically ill patients are often confronted with complex interventions and sometimes have to change their lifestyle, it is essential for them to gain knowledge about their illness and to actively participate in the treatment process. The PAM-13 (Patient Activation Measure) questionnaire developed in the USA is dedicated to this topic. Since the German-language version has not yet been sufficiently psychometrically examined, a survey of patient activation is carried out in patients with macular edema. The psychometric properties of the PAM-13 are analyzed using the Item Response Theory.
  • Duration: 2018 – ongoing
  • Funded by: Medical University of Graz
  • Project partners: Department of Ophthalmology

Principal Investigator

Research Prof. Priv.-Doz. Mag. Dr.
Alexander Avian  
T: +43 316 385 17873

Team