Fiocruz webinar on REDCap brings together around a thousand people
Fiocruz specialists met on 14 December for the webinar "The use of REDCap beyond surveys and typical databases: efficiency in research" with the aim of expanding access to information about REDCap and allowing its use to be more efficient in research through examples given by Fiocruz researchers and the technical team that administers Fiocruz REDCap.
The event was attended by the coordinator of information and communication of the Vice-Presidency of Education, Information and Communication (VPEIC), Vanessa Jorge, as mediator and speakers: the manager of clinical research data from the clinical research platform of the Vice-Presidency of Research and Biological Collections (VPPCB), Leandro Amparo de Souza, data scientist at the Evandro Chagas National Institute of Infectious Diseases (INI), Margareth Catoia Varela, deputy coordinator of Nascer no Brasil II at the Sergio Arouca National School of Public Health (ENSP), Ana Paula Esteves Pereira and the coordinator of the Fiocruz clinical research platform of the VPPCB, André Daher, in addition to around a thousand listeners.
At the event, organised by VPEIC through Fiocruz Hub, in partnership with The Global Health Network, Leandro talked about the importance of the REDCap tool in research. "It was designed for clinical research but can be used for any type of data capture," Leandro explained. The data manager also explained that there is a consortium made up of tool users to answer questions about using REDCap. "There is a consortium, made up of several countries around the world. The network was created for users to help each other, it is a great support network."
Fiocruz REDCap
Leandro also explained the creation of Fiocruz REDCap. There are currently 11 areas of Fiocruz that use REDCap in their processes related to data capture. He said there are 509 projects made at the institution within Fiocruz REDCap, with around 2,600 people registered. “IFF (National Institute of Women's, Children's and Adolescents' Health Fernandes Figueira) was used as a pilot. Then we created a working group with other units that wanted to participate in training and exchange experiences. We also created a discussion forum," commented the manager.
REDCap in reality – practical applications
Next was the participation of data scientist Margareth Varela. She talked about the reality of the riverside population, which does not have access to high-cost development system. REDCap was a solution for collecting and storing data for a research group that did a project of clinical data and biological samples in the Amazon from 2019. "In terms of form construction, the project had nothing very elaborate. Here (with REDCap) it was thought about low cost and ease of data collection," explained the data scientist.
She brought other practical experiences where the use of REDCap was necessary for data collection with features such as surveys, randomisation module and project dashboards.
Managing large volumes of data in REDCap
The deputy coordinator of Nascer no Brasil II at ENSP, Ana Paula Esteves Pereira, talked about the Nascer no Brasil case. “Due to the volume of Nascer do Brasil data, the use of REDCap is essential,” Ana Paula explained. “In online data collection, the collected data used all REDCap tools. They are: data access groups, automatic validation, branching logic, calculated variables, field reports, live filters, customised dashboards and dashboards," said the researcher.
Advanced features in research project management
The coordinator of the Fiocruz clinical research platform, André Bastos Daher, said that REDCap can be a solution for Open Science practice. “We used the data from our project in REDCap and deposited it in Arca Dados, Fiocruz's data repository,” he commented.
The research in question is the Sakura Project, a randomised double-blind study. The study was recently published and is available in English here: "A code for clinical trials centralised monitoring, sharing open-science solutions to high-quality data"
The full webinar will be available soon in Portuguese, English and Spanish on the Nascer no Brasil Pathfinder page (here).