U.S. Army Medical Department journal
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Incremental Effects of Telephone Call Center and Healthcare Utilization Database Use to Improve Follow-up Rate in the Prevention of Low Back Pain in the Military Trial.
Studies that have relied exclusively on web-based surveys to secure follow-up have yielded inadequate follow-up rates, resulting in the need to explore whether supplementing with other methods results in incremental improvements. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of each follow up strategy that was used to collect the follow up data in our ongoing Prevention of Low Back Pain in the Military (POLM) trial. ⋯ The results of this study can inform the design of future clinical trials by establishing the benefit of supplementing a web-based survey with a telephone call center to secure additional follow-up.