Preliminary Contact With a Mailed Follow-Up Survey

Michael H. Miner
Additional contact information
Michael H. Miner: St. Louis University

Evaluation Review, 1983, vol. 7, issue 3, 385-396

Abstract: This study examined the effects of preliminary contact by mail and telephone on the rate of response to a follow-up survey offormer mental health patients. The subjects were the par ents or parenting figures of 145 children due for six- or eighteen-month follow-up as part of the evaluation of the services provided at an outpatient child psychiatric facility. The survey instruments were the Child Behavior Checklist and a thirty-one item descriptive adjective rating scale. A significant effect wasfoundfor the use of preliminary contact, but notfor the use of telephone contact rather than mailed precontact. Additionally, it wasfound that it was difficult to contact subjects over the telephone and that telephone precontact was more expensive than mailed precontact. This article also addresses the problem of maintaining patient confidentiality while identifying prospective subjects who had moved since their last visit to the facility for treatment. This balance between study power and former patients' rights to privacy is a difficult question for mental health service evaluations.

Date: 1983
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0193841X8300700307 (text/html)

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:sae:evarev:v:7:y:1983:i:3:p:385-396

DOI: 10.1177/0193841X8300700307

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Evaluation Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().