VPG and Shire PLC to publish a “Validation of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale Modified for Binge Eating” in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. A link to the article and supplemental materials will be provided when they become available.

VPG and Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc. will be presenting “A Patient- Reported Outcomes (PRO) questionnaire for the pediatric soft contact lens wearer: Pediatric Contact Lens User Experience (pCLUE)’” at the 2015 British Contact Lens Association Conference (29 – 31 May) in Liverpool, UK.  

A new Handbook of Item Response Theory Modeling (edited by Reise & Revicki) is available. Check out the chapters on parameter estimation (Chapter 3) and multidimensioanl IRT (Chapter 8) coauthored by VPG. Also see examples using flexMIRT® (VPG’s IRT software) in Chapters 4, 6, 8, and 10.

A new paper in Applied Psychological Measurement authored by VPG’s Drs. Houts and Edwards examines methods for better understanding detection of surface and underlying local dependence in IRT models. An early online copy of “Comparing Surface and Underlying Local Dependence Levels via Polychoric Correlations” is now available..

Dr. Li Cai, a VPG Managing Partner, joined England’s Standards & Testing Agency’s Technical Advisory Group. The group oversees and advises on technical matters regarding psychometric developments and implementation of national academic tests.

The FDA recently released a Draft Guidance on developing new treatments for acute migraine. Of note to those involved in patient-reported outcomes are the sections on endpoint selection which suggests that sponsors examine multiple domains (other than pain itself) as well as the most bothersome symptom to the patient (i.e. nausea). Find the guidance here

The FDA has recently posted a Draft Guidance on the procedure for requesting and presenting at a meeting with the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). One of the potential topics pharmaceutical companies may want to address at a meeting with CDER concerns development of clinical outcome assessments in the early parts of clinical development prior to a new COA being ready for formal qualification. Vector Psychometric Group has experience presenting the benefits of modern psychometric techniques to the FDA.