Characteristics of people lost to attrition in psychiatric follow-up studies
Characteristics of people lost to attrition in psychiatric follow-up studies
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DOI：
10.1097/00005053-200101000-00009
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发表时间：
2001-01-01
影响因子：
1.9
通讯作者：
Goethe, JW
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fischer, EH;Dornelas, EA;Goethe, JW
在一项针对既往住院精神病患者的大型（N = 1744）研究中，在出院后一年内多次尝试随访以联系既往患者。当联系他们时，他们被要求提供有关住院后调整的信息; 59.5%的样本至少被联系过一次，并通过电话采访或邮寄的调查表获得了可用的数据。接触和非接触的人代表了非常不同的亚群，无论是在人口统计学上还是在典型的精神病描述符方面。那些社会经济地位较低、男性、未婚、少数民族、有药物滥用或攻击性记录的人，以及在基线住院期间受损更严重的人，在接触组中代表性不足。这些样本偏倚的可能原因，对医院进行结果评估的影响（即，为研究和计划评估的目的），和处理这种方法问题的策略进行了讨论。
In a large (N = 1744) study of previously hospitalized psychiatric patients, multiple follow-up attempts were made to contact the ex-patients over a I-year period after their discharges. When contacted they were asked to provide information about their posthospital adjustment; 59.5% of the sample was reached at least once and usable data obtained either in a telephone interview or from a mailed survey form. The contacted and noncontacted people represented very different subpopulations, both demographically and in terms of typical psychiatric descriptors. Those who were of lower socioeconomic status, male, unmarried, racial minorities, and those with records of substance abuse or assaultiveness, and who were generally more severely impaired during the baseline hospitalization were underrepresented in the contacted group. Possible reasons for these sample biases, the implications for hospitals conducting outcome assessments (i.e., for research and program evaluation purposes), and strategies for dealing with this kind of methodological problem are discussed.