Telephone reminder calls increased response rates to mailed study consent forms

Area of Science:

• Rheumatology
• Clinical Trial Methodology
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Assessing patient recruitment strategies is crucial for clinical trial success.
• Mailed consent forms are a common but often inefficient method for study enrollment.
• Low response rates can delay research and impact generalizability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of follow-up reminder phone calls.
• To determine the impact of phone calls on mailed consent form response rates.
• To enhance patient participation in rheumatoid arthritis research.

Main Methods:

• Patients with rheumatoid arthritis were mailed consent forms.
• A subset of patients who did not return forms received reminder phone calls.
• Response rates were compared between patients who received calls and those who did not.

Main Results:

• An initial response rate of 52% was observed for mailed consent forms.
• Follow-up calls were made to 220 patients who had not returned forms.
• Contacting patients by phone resulted in an additional 31% of those called returning consent forms.

Conclusions:

• Follow-up reminder phone calls effectively increased the overall consent rate.
• The intervention raised the consent rate from 52% to 61%.
• Phone call reminders are a valuable tool for improving clinical study response rates.