Research skills and the data spreadsheet: A research primer for low- and middle-income countries

David McD Taylor; Peter W Hodkinson; Abdus Salam Khan; Erin L Simon

doi:10.1016/j.afjem.2020.05.003

Research skills and the data spreadsheet: A research primer for low- and middle-income countries

Afr J Emerg Med. 2020;10(Suppl 2):S140-S144. doi: 10.1016/j.afjem.2020.05.003. Epub 2020 Jun 7.

Authors

David McD Taylor^{1

2}, Peter W Hodkinson³, Abdus Salam Khan⁴, Erin L Simon^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
² Emergency Department, Austin Health, Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia.
³ Division of Emergency Medicine, University of Cape Town, Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa.
⁴ Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan.
⁵ Cleveland Clinic Akron General, Department of Emergency Medicine, Akron, OH, United States of America.
⁶ Northeast Ohio Medical University, Rootstown, OH, United States of America.

Abstract

The specialty of Emergency Medicine continues to expand and mature worldwide. As a relatively new specialty, the body of research that underpins patient management in the emergency department (ED) setting needs to be expanded for optimum patient care. Research in the ED, however, is complicated by a number of issues including limited time and resources, urgency for some therapeutic investigations and interventions, and difficulties in obtaining truly informed patient consent. Notwithstanding these issues, many of the fundamental principles of medical research apply equally to ED research. In all medical disciplines, data needs to be collected, collated and stored for analysis and a data spreadsheet is employed for this purpose. Like other aspects of clinical research, the use of the data spreadsheet needs to be exacting and appropriate. This research primer explores the choice of available spreadsheets and a range of principles for their best-practice use. It is deliberately, not an exhaustive review of the subject. However, we aim to explore basic principles and some of the most accessible and widely used data spreadsheets.

Keywords: Data; Research; Spreadsheet.