Generic computer-based questionnaires: an extension to OpenSDE

Development of computer-based questionnaires (CQs) has been an ongoing challenge since the 1960s. The added value of such CQs for data collection and the acceptance by patients have been well documented. Many questionnaire projects, however, were temporary due to dedicated software, limited funding, and lack of integration with medical information systems. Also, the use of a fixed dedicated database makes integration cumbersome, as change in content requires change to the data model. Since much of the functional requirement of CQs is not dependent on content, the challenge is to both separate functionality and database structure from content. Following these principles, we extended OpenSDE, a generic application for structured data entry, with a tool to construct and run CQs as an alternative way of data input. We propose the combination of a generic building tool and a content-independent data model as an effective strategy to tackle the above-mentioned problems in CQ development.