ArticlePreventive medicine reports2015
Effect of telephone follow-up on retention and balance in an alcohol intervention trial.
Article in Preventive medicine reports, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Evaluating phone call follow-ups in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Methods to increase response to postal and electronic questionnaires.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Non-randomised evaluations of strategies to increase participant retention in randomised controlled trials: a systematic review.Systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Mobile phone intervention to reduce dropout from treatment at an outpatient mental health service for older people in Nigeria.African health sciences · 2023Article
- Implications for a System of Care in Hawai'i: Primary Care Integration of Substance Use Disorder Treatment.Hawai'i journal of health & social welfare · 2022Article
- Automatic avoidance tendencies for alcohol cues predict drinking after detoxification treatment in alcohol dependence.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTelephone follow-up is not currently recommended as a strategy to improve retention in randomized trials. The aims of this study were to estimate the effect of telephone follow-up on retention, identify participant characteristics predictive of questionnaire completion during or after telephone follow-up, and estimate the effect of including participants who provided follow-up data during or after telephone follow-up on balance between randomly allocated groups in a trial estimating the effect of electronic alcohol screening and brief intervention on alcohol consumption in hospital outpatients with hazardous or harmful drinking.
methodTrial participants were followed up 6 months after randomization (June-December 2013) using e-mails containing a hyperlink to a web-based questionnaire when possible and by post otherwise. Telephone follow-up was attempted after two written reminders and participants were invited to complete the questionnaire by telephone when contact was made.
resultsRetention before telephone follow-up was 62.1% (520/837) and 82.8% (693/837) afterward: an increase of 20.7% (173/837). Therefore, 55% (95% CI 49%-60%) of the 317 participants who had not responded after two written reminders responded during or after the follow-up telephone call. Age < 55 years, a higher AUDIT-C score and provision of a mobile/cell phone number were predictive of questionnaire completion during or after telephone follow-up. Balance between randomly allocated groups was present before and after inclusion of participants who completed the questionnaire during or after telephone follow-up.
conclusionTelephone follow-up improved retention in this randomized trial without affecting balance between the randomly allocated groups.
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Registered trials
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