> Qualifications of the LCSS Trainer

  • The trainer for the LCSS should be a person experienced in administration of instruments (masters prepared or above for an understanding of psychometric properties). Thus, the trainer not only needs to provide the background for QL assessment and why QL is a unique endpoint, but also needs to provide background for why certain procedures are needed to prevent missing data, patient completion errors, and errors in transcription. When these requirements are not met, problems are likely.

  • Our group also believes it would be best to provide direct training in person. Thus, it is best to train the data managers directly instead of having the field monitors train them. However, if this is not possible, then training the field monitors to do the training is essential.

  • Primarily, our group advocates the training of data managers, who then "train" patients to prevent missing data. We have found excellent completion rates for this 9-item scale for the patient and 6-item scale for the observer through training.

  • If there is a site that cannot send a person to the formal training session, then in addition to using a trainer, we advocate purchasing the LCSS educational video (with an actual case for practice in scoring the LCSS observer scale) once an initial training session has been demonstrated.


< Back to training page