Participant Groups

2024-03-29

Participant groups provide an easy way to group together study subjects, either for scientific/analytical reasons or utilitarian/management reasons.
  • Highlight a scientifically interesting group of participants, such as participants who have a certain condition, medical history, or demographic property.
  • Mark off a useful group from a study management point of view, such as participants who have granted testing consent, or participants who visited such-and-such a lab during such-and-such a time period.
Cohorts are similar to participant groups, with some additional built in behavior. You can only have one set of cohorts in a study, but multiple participant groups and categories. An administrator must define study cohorts; non-admins can add participant groups, as described below.

Participant groups are organized into categories. Within each participant group category, each participant can only appear once. This allows for "cohort-like" segmenting of all the participants based on a given set of criteria (i.e. with and without some characteristic) as well as "singleton" groups, where a subset of participants is of interest, but the subset of "not that group" does not need to be maintained.

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Create a Participant Group by Selecting

You can create a participant group by individually selecting participants from any data grid in your study.

  • Go to any data grid in your study that includes a ParticipantID column.
  • Individually select the participants you want to include in the group using the checkbox selectors.
  • Select Groups > Create Participant Group > From Selected Participants.
    • Enter the Participant Group Label
    • Review the set of Participant Identifiers. Edit if necessary.
    • Select a Participant Category from the pulldown or type in the box to define a new category. Note that participants can only be in one group within any given category. If you leave the category field blank, the new group will be listed on the top level menu as its own "category".
    • Use the checkbox if you want to share the category you define with others.
  • Click Save.

Create a Participant Group by Filtering

You can create a participant group by filtering a grid to show only the participants you want to include.

Note that participant groups are static. Meaning that this filtering applies only to the process of creating the group of participants initially. The filter will not be applied later to add new participants that would have met the criteria if they had been present at group creation.

In addition, the filter will not be applied when you view data for those participants. The group is composed of the 'filtered' subset of participants, but when you view the group in that dataset, you may see many more rows if the same participants had other values in that column at other times.

  • Go to any data grid in your study that includes a ParticipantID column.
  • Filter the data grid to include only the participants you want to include in the group.
  • Use the checkbox to select the displayed rows.
  • Select Groups > Create Participant Group > From Selected Participants.
    • Enter the Label and Category, and review the list as described above.
  • Click Save.

A common process is to then add additional groups in this category using different filter values. For example, if you had a boolean column, you might first create a group for the "true" value in that column, then create a second group in the same category for the "false" value in the same column.

Manage Participant Groups

  • From any study grid, select Groups > Manage Participant Groups.
  • Click Create to create a new participant group directly from this page. This creation dialog includes a grid section for specifying the group:
    • Use the dropdown Select Participants from to select the data grid to show.
    • Select individuals using the checkboxes, then click Add Selected, or filter the grid using the column headers to show the group to create, then click Add All.
    • Choose or name the Participant Category and elect whether to share it.
    • Click Save.
  • Click any existing group to select it and enable options:
    • Delete Selected
    • Edit Selected: Opens the same creation dialog for editing, including the selection grid.

Share Groups and Categories

When creating groups, keep in mind:

  • Shared/Not Shared applies directly to the category and only indirectly to the participant groups within a category.
  • Administrators and editors can create shared or private groups; everyone with read access can create private groups.
  • Admins and editors can delete shared groups, otherwise you have to be the owner to delete a group.
  • Anyone with read access to a folder can see shared groups.

Use a Participant Group

Once a participant group has been created you can filter any of the datasets using that group, just as you can filter using a cohort.

  • Open the Groups menu for a list of available cohort-based and group-based filters, including any groups you have created or have been shared with you. Uncategorized groups are shown on the main menu, categories you define become submenus.

Delete a Participant Group

  • Open the Manage tab.
  • Select Manage Participant Groups.
  • Highlight the participant group you wish to delete, then click Delete Selected.

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