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Feasibility of follow-up through e-mail in patients discharged after subarachnoid hemorrhage
Paut Greebe1, Gabriel J E Rinkel
1Department of Neurology, Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neurosciences, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Background:
Long-term follow-up in patients with a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) can be important in patients care and for clinical research, but outpatients' visits or telephone interviews are time consuming.
Methods:
We studied the feasibility of follow up through e-mail in a prospectively collected series of patients with aneurysmal SAH.
Results:
Of the 97 patients who were discharged 58 (60%; 95% CI 49-70%) had e-mail, and all 58 provided their e-mail address. At 1 year 37 patients (64%; 95% CI 50-76%) responded to the first questionnaire sent by e-mail, 6 did so after an e-mail reminder. Fifteen responded after a telephone call, of which 12 had a new e-mail address.
Conclusions:
E-mail follow-up after SAH is feasible and for patients acceptable, but the proportion of patients with no or with changing e-mail address is considerable. The validity of the responses via e-mail has to be assessed in further studies.
