Telephone follow-up was more expensive but more efficient than postal in a national stroke registry

Abstract Objective To compare the efficiency and differential costs of telephone- vs. mail-based assessments of outcome in patients registered in a national clinical quality of care registry, the Australian Stroke Clinical Registry (AuSCR). Study Design and Setting The participants admitted to hospital with stroke or transient ischemic attack were randomly assigned to complete a health questionnaire by mail or telephone interview at 3–6 months postevent. Response rate, researcher burden, and costs of each method were compared. Results Compared with the participants in the mail questionnaire arm ( n = 277; 50% female; mean age: 70 years), those in the telephone arm ( n = 282; 45% female; mean age: 68 years) required a shorter time to complete the follow-up (mean difference: 24.2 days; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 15.0, 33.5 days). However, the average cost of completing a telephone follow-up was greater (US$20.87 vs. US$13.86) and had a similar overall response to the mail method (absolute difference: 0.57%; 95% CI: −4.8%, 6%). Conclusion Posthospital stroke outcome data were slower to collect by mail, but the method achieved a similar completion rate and was significantly cheaper to conduct than follow-up telephone interview. Findings are informative for planning outcome data collection in large numbers of patients with acute stroke.