Randomized controlled comparison of cross-sectional survey approaches to optimize follow-up completeness in clinical studies

Regula S von Allmen, Christian Tinner, Jürg Schmidli, Hendrik T Tevaearai and Florian Dick

PLOS ONE, 2019, vol. 14, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: Introduction: In outcome research, incomplete follow-up is a major, yet potentially correctable source of bias. Cross-sectional surveys may theoretically increase completeness of follow-up, but low response rates are reported typically. We investigated whether a pre-notification letter improved patient availability for follow-up phone interviews and thereby improved cross-sectional survey yield. Methods: A consecutive series of vascular patients was randomly divided into a trial and a validation population. The trial population was then randomized 1:1 to one of two cross-sectional contact strategies: Strategy 1 consisted of direct contact attempts by up to 12 systematically timed phone calls, whereas Strategy 2 used a personalized pre-notification letter to arrange for scheduled phone call interviews. Response rates, average time and efforts needed per patient and overall survey duration were compared. Subsequently, trial findings were externally validated in the validation population. Results: Of 728 consecutive patients, 370 were allocated to the trial population. Trial patients contacted by strategy 1 (n = 183) had a similar profile when compared to trial patients contacted by strategy 2 (n = 187). Follow-up periods following surgery (54.3 versus 53.6 months) and all-cause mortality rates (21.3% versus 18.7%) were comparable between the trial groups. Cross-sectional information on survival outcomes was almost complete after both contact strategies (99.5% versus 98.9%, P = 1.0). In 144/187 strategy 2 patients (77%) interviews were scheduled successfully necessitating significantly less contact attempts (median of 1.3 versus 2.3 per patient, P

Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0213822 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 13822&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0213822

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213822

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().