Visit dates and labels

You can choose to display a date and/or a label under a visit name in the header of the data entry schedule.

To do this, you must nominate an eForm in the visit to act as the 'visit eForm'. Then any eForm date and label set up for that eForm will also be used as the visit date and visit label.

You must set up visit dates and labels individually for each visit. There is no way to switch them on/off for an entire study.

Setting up a visit eForm

Visit eForms are not displayed in the data entry schedule so we recommend that you create an eForm especially to act as the visit eForm, as follows:

Only one eForm in a visit may be set as the visit eForm.
Visit eForms may contain questions other than the eForm date question, but these questions will never be displayed to the data entry user. However, if the visit eForm contains derived questions, these will be calculated as normal, and can be viewed in the Data Browser.
The value of a visit date (and any other questions on the visit eForm) may be viewed in the Data Browser.
If a visit date is a user-entered date question (rather than a derived question), no eForm in the visit can be saved without a valid visit date; if no date has been entered and the user tries to save the eForm, a message will be displayed saying that the visit date is missing.
You can use the same eForm as a visit eForm in one visit, and as a”normal” eForm in another visit. In the Data Entry schedule this eForm will not appear in the visit for which it is a visit eForm, but it will appear in other visits.
You should not place any Arezzo preconditions, internal triggers or scheduling constraints on a Visit eForm. The data is used in the background so it needs to be available at all times.
If a visit is frozen, the visit eForm will also be frozen and can only be unfrozen by unfreezing the entire visit and not by unfreezing the eForm itself. If an individual eForm in a frozen visit is unfrozen, the visit will become unfrozen but the visit eForm will remain frozen. To unfreeze the visit eForm, the visit must be frozen and then unfrozen.
If more than one user is editing the same subject, only one of them can edit the visit date. If another user opens an eForm within the same visit, the visit date will be displayed in a read-only field for the second user.

Setting up a visit date

After you have created the visit eForm, you can specify its eForm date. This eForm date will act as the visit date. Help on setting up eForm dates...

As with all eForm dates, the visit date can be user-entered or can be derived from elsewhere.

The visit date question field will be displayed in the headers of every eForm in the visit.

When the visit eForm date question is answered during data entry, the resultant date value will be displayed in the header of each eForm and also on the schedule underneath the eForm icon.

You may wish to set up a comparison between visit dates, for example to check that a visit took place at a specific interval after the previous one. The approach to this differs depending on whether the visits are repeating or non-repeating.

Non-repeating visits

In this example, assume that the study definition has 4 visits (Screening, Baseline, Treatment and Followup) with a visit eForm in each visit called VEF and a visit date question called VDate.

To check that each visit date is after the previous one, add the following three validations to the VDate question. Each uses the Arezzo "visit" keyword which represents the current visit.

Validation	Validation Message
visit = 'Baseline' and me:value isbefore Screening:VEF:VDate	Visit date must be later than the Screening visit date
visit = 'Treatment' and me:value isbefore Baseline:VEF:VDate	Visit date must be later than the Baseline visit date
visit = 'Followup' and me:value isbefore Treatment:VEF:VDate	Visit date must be later than the Treatment visit date

Alternatively, the three validations can be merged into a single validation:

(visit = 'Baseline' and me:value isbefore Screening:VEF:VDate) OR (visit = 'Treatment' and me:value isbefore Baseline:VEF:VDate) OR (visit = 'Followup' and me:value isbefore Treatment:VEF:VDate)

with a validation message of:

'Visit date must be after previous visit date'

You could also add a validation for the first visit date, e.g. to check that it is after a fixed date:

visit = 'Screening' and me:value isbefore date(2012,1,1) 'Screening visit date must not be earlier than 1st January 2012'

If you want to include the actual value of the previous visit date in the validation message, it could be done using the Arezzo format_date function:

'Visit date must be after previous visit date: ' & format_date(case((visit = 'Baseline', Screening:VEF:VDate), (visit = 'Treatment', Baseline:VEF:VDate), (visit = 'Followup', Treatment:VEF:VDate)), 'dd/mm/yyyy')

You can also create a validation to check that a visit is within a certain time interval from the previous visit. For example, to fire a warning if the Baseline visit is not within 5 days of the Screening visit, use the following validation:

visit = 'Baseline' AND (me:value isbefore Screening:VEF:VDate OR me:value isafter Screening:VEF:VDate + 5 days)

with a validation message of:

'Visit date must be within 5 days after Screening date: ' & format_date(Screening:VEF:VDate, 'dd/mm/yyyy')

Again, this can be created as a separate validation or combined with other validations using OR.

Repeating visits

If a visit is repeating (cycling), the Arezzo terms previous and visit:cycle can be used.

On the first cycle, you need to check that the visit date is after the Baseline visit date. On subsequent cycles, you need to check that the visit date is after the previous Treatment visit date. For the first cycle, the Arezzo term visit:cycle is 1. The validation condition would be as follows:

visit = 'Treatment' AND ((visit:cycle = 1 and me:value isbefore Baseline:VEF:VDate) OR (me:value isbefore visit(previous):VEF:VDate))

Note once again the use of the "visit" keyword, which denotes "the current visit".

To check that the Followup visit is after the last Treatment visit, the validation would be as follows:

visit = 'Followup' and me:value isbefore Treatment(last):VEF:VDate

However, if the Treatment visit is infinitely cycling, there may be an "empty" visit as the "last" visit, so a check can be made to see if the "last" visit has a known date. If not, the next-to-last visit date can be referred to (using the relative cycle specifier expression last – 1).

visit = 'Followup' and me:value isbefore if(isknown(Treatment(last):VEF:VDate), Treatment(last):VEF:VDate, Treatment(last-1):VEF:VDate )

Setting up a visit label

Once you have created the visit eForm, you can specify its eForm label. This eForm label will act as the visit label. Help on setting up eForm labels...

The visit label is not displayed anywhere in data entry as a user-enterable field so it must be either a derived question or an Arezzo expression.

When the question or expression referenced in the label is evaluated during data entry, the resultant value will be displayed on the schedule underneath the visit name.

In this example, the visit label is an expression that returns the value of a 'Reason for visit' question on the Cover eForm:

As with eForm labels, there is no length restriction in the display of visit labels. So if you create a label that uses a response from a question which allows a long value, the entire value will display in the visit header. This will expand the width of the visit which may cause the schedule to look untidy and become difficult to work with.

If the information referenced in a visit label or the expression itself is changed or deleted, the label will be automatically updated.