Evidence Summary
What is it?
Electronic (SMS or email) prompt sent to trial participants. Prompt is sent close to, or after, a participant has received the questionnaire. Message content varies but usually emphasisies importance of return.
Does it work?
Sending an electronic prompt probably increases retention.
How big is the effect?
An increase of 6.3% (95% confidence interval = 0.5% to 12.2%).
How certain are we?
GRADE Moderate certainty.
Recommendation
We We recommend that trialists use electronic prompts to increase retention in trials that use questionnaires.
How can I use this straight away?
See Resource bundle below for details of how to set up prompts and text messages to form their content
Practical Impact
Imagine initial retention is 65% of those approached. You have a trial with 100 participants that needs responses from 80 to meet its statistical power calculations. Retention of 65% means that you will be 15 responses short (see chart below).
Now imagine using theory-based cover letters. The chart below shows the impact of an absolute increase of 4.4% (95% CI = -1.2% to 10.1%). Retention is now 69.4%, which means our best estimate is that you would now only be 11 responses short.
Cumulative Meta-Analysis*
*Random effects model done using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis v3 (www.meta-analysis.com).
Differences >0% favour the intervention. The GRADE assessment is moderate because of imprecision.
Resource Bundle
How to Cite
Citation:Clark L, Gillies K, Torgerson D, Treweek S. Evidence pack– Retention: Electronic (SMS or email) prompts (Ret2), 2020, https://www.trialforge.org/retention-sector/electronic-sms-or-email-prompts/.
More Information
- This summary is from the Cochrane review of strategies to improve retention in randomised trials (https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.MR000032.pub3/full).
- The ‘Does it work?’ statement is structured according to effect size and GRADE certainty as per GRADE Guidelines 26 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2019.10.014). The statement is for moderate effect size and High GRADE certainty
- Data are published in Clark et al https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(15)00024-4/fulltext
- The recommendation statement is the consensus view of the authors of this summary based on the GRADE certainty and features of the trials contributing to the evidence.
- If you have any questions contact info@trialforge.org.
