Center for Evidence Synthesis in Health, School of Public Health, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA; Department of Health Services, Policy & Practice, School of Public Health, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
Center for Evidence Synthesis in Health, School of Public Health, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA; Department of Health Services, Policy & Practice, School of Public Health, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA; Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
J Clin Epidemiol. 2019 Nov;115:150-159. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2019.05.027. Epub 2019 May 29.
The aim of the study was to compare response proportions and research costs of telephone calling vs. continued emailing nonresponding authors of studies included in a systematic review.
Key features of included studies were poorly reported in a systematic review of diabetes quality improvement interventions. We developed a survey to request additional information from contact authors. After three email contact attempts, only 76 of 279 authors (27%) had completed the survey. In this study, we randomly assigned nonresponding authors to contact by telephone calling vs. continued emailing to compare the effect of these strategies on response proportions and research costs.
We randomized 87 authors to telephone and 89 to email contact. Telephone contact increased survey completion (36.7% vs. 20.2%; adjusted risk difference of 15.6% [95% confidence interval: 2.90%, 28.4%]; adjusted odds ratio 2.26 [95% confidence interval: 1.10, 4.76]) but required more time to deliver (20 vs. 10 hours in total; 14 vs. 7 minutes per randomized author; 26 vs. 4 weeks), and cost more (total intervention cost of $504 Canadian dollars vs. $252 for the telephone and email arm, respectively).
Contacting nonresponding authors of included studies by telephone increased response compared with emailing but required more investigator time and had higher cost.
本研究旨在比较电话联系与持续电子邮件联系对系统评价中纳入研究的未回复作者的回复比例和研究成本。
在对糖尿病质量改进干预措施的系统评价中，纳入研究的关键特征报告不佳。我们开发了一份调查，要求联系作者提供更多信息。在三次电子邮件联系尝试后，只有 279 名作者中的 76 名（27%）完成了调查。在这项研究中，我们随机分配未回复的作者进行电话联系或持续电子邮件联系，以比较这些策略对回复比例和研究成本的影响。
我们随机分配了 87 名作者进行电话联系，89 名作者进行电子邮件联系。电话联系增加了调查完成率（36.7%比 20.2%；调整后的风险差异为 15.6%[95%置信区间：2.90%，28.4%]；调整后的优势比为 2.26[95%置信区间：1.10，4.76]），但需要更多的时间来完成（总时间分别为 20 小时和 10 小时；每个随机作者的电话联系时间分别为 14 分钟和 7 分钟；电话联系需要 26 周，电子邮件联系需要 4 周），且成本更高（总干预成本分别为 504 加元电话联系组和 252 加元电子邮件联系组）。
与电子邮件联系相比，通过电话联系未回复作者可以提高回复率，但需要更多的调查员时间，且成本更高。
