Department of Internal Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States of America.
Department of Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Oct 15;19(10):e0308995. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308995. eCollection 2024.
Retention to complete follow-up surveys in extensive longitudinal epidemiological cohort studies is vital yet challenging. All of Us developed pilot interventions to improve response rates for follow-up surveys.
The pilot interventions occurred from April 27, 2020, to August 3, 2020. The three arms were: (1) telephone appointment [staff members calling participants offering appointments to complete surveys over phone] (2) postal [mail reminder to complete surveys through U.S. Postal Service], and (3) combination of telephone appointment and postal. Controls received digital-only reminders [program-level digital recontact via email or through the participant portal]. Study sites chose their study arm and participants were not randomized.
A total of 50 sites piloted interventions with 17,593 participants, while 47,832 participants comprised controls during the same period. Of all participants, 6,828 (10.4%) completed any follow-up surveys (1448: telephone; 522: postal; 486: combination; 4372: controls). Follow-up survey completions were 24% higher in the telephone appointment arm than in controls in bivariate analyses. When controlling for confounders, telephone appointment and combination arms increased rates of completion similarly compared to controls, while the postal arm had no significant effect (odds ratio [95% Confidence Interval], telephone appointment:2.01[1.81-2.23]; combination:1.91[1.66-2.20]; postal:0.92[0.79-1.07]). Although the effects of the telephone appointment and combination arms were similar, differential effects were observed across sub-populations.
Telephone appointments appeared to be the most successful intervention in our study. Lessons learned about retention interventions, and improvement in follow-up survey completion rates provide generalizable knowledge for similar cohort studies and demonstrate the potential value of precision reminders and engagement with sub-populations of a cohort.
在广泛的纵向流行病学队列研究中，完成随访调查的保留率至关重要，但也具有挑战性。“所有人”计划开发了试点干预措施，以提高后续调查的回复率。
试点干预措施于 2020 年 4 月 27 日至 2020 年 8 月 3 日进行。三个干预措施包括：（1）电话预约（工作人员致电参与者，提供电话完成调查的预约）（2）邮寄（通过美国邮政服务邮寄提醒以完成调查），以及（3）电话预约和邮寄的组合。对照组仅收到数字提醒（通过电子邮件或通过参与者门户进行计划级别的数字重新联系）。研究地点选择了他们的研究组，参与者没有随机分配。
共有 50 个地点对 17593 名参与者进行了干预措施试点，而在同一时期，有 47832 名参与者为对照组。在所有参与者中，有 6828 人（10.4%）完成了任何后续调查（1448 人：电话；522 人：邮寄；486 人：组合；4372 人：对照组）。在单变量分析中，电话预约组的随访调查完成率比对照组高 24%。在控制混杂因素后，与对照组相比，电话预约和组合组的完成率相似增加，而邮寄组则没有显著效果（优势比[95%置信区间]，电话预约：2.01[1.81-2.23]；组合：1.91[1.66-2.20]；邮寄：0.92[0.79-1.07]）。尽管电话预约和组合组的效果相似，但在亚人群中观察到了不同的效果。
在我们的研究中，电话预约似乎是最成功的干预措施。关于保留干预措施的经验教训以及提高后续调查完成率提供了类似队列研究的可推广知识，并展示了针对队列亚人群的精准提醒和参与的潜在价值。
