With the completion of a set of Delphi gap analyses conducted as part of the National Trauma Research Action Plan (NTRAP) project, trauma investigators are encouraged to review and consider the priorities established in each of 11 focus areas when proposing new studies. For this project, NTRAP panel leaders recruited interdisciplinary experts to identify gaps in the literature, generate research questions that could address those gaps, and then prioritize those questions on a 9-point Likert scale, moving toward consensus ratings over three consecutive Delphi rounds.
All research questions that reached consensus were then tagged using an NTRAP taxonomy of 118 research concepts, which were consistent across all 11 panels. The taxonomy scheme consists of the following categories: Population, Phase of Care, Global Injury Pattern, Specific Injuries, Intervention, Observable Clinical States, Patient-Reported Outcomes, and Type of Research.
Primary manuscripts reporting the results of the NTRAP Delphi surveys are published in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Research, and have been gathered into a Collection, accessible from the JTACS website menu. Following one-year embargo dates (pegged to the initial pre-publication date of each manuscript), the data are available for secondary analysis. Researchers can request data from one, several, or all panels, and analyses can be conducted within or across panels using the taxonomy tags.
To submit a data request, fill out the Online Data Access Form.
CNTR executed the NTRAP project with $2.7 million in funding from the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command under Contract No. W81XWH-18-C-0179. The NTRAP project includes three Aims:
- AIM 1 – Perform a gap analysis of military and civilian trauma research to identify priorities across the continuum of care.
- AIM 2 – Define optimal metrics to assess long-term functional outcomes in injured patients following hospital discharge.
- AIM 3 – Identify trauma research regulatory barriers, develop best practices for investigators, and collaborate with federal entities to define optimal endpoints for clinical trauma research
Information and products from Aim 2 and Aim 3 can be found on the NTRAP pages of the Nattrauma.org website, which is being built as materials become available. An executive summary of the entire project will be posted there soon. Visit today to learn more.
