Journal Article

Retention and characteristics associated with remote questionnaire completion in a general population cohort study: the project baseline health study

Shah, Svati H., Pagidipati, Neha, Bouteiller, Jean, Plowman, R. Scooter, Shashidhar, Sumana, Faheem, Safa, Carroll, Megan K., Hernandez, Adrian, Swope, Susan, Short, Sarah A., Mega, Jessica L., Sullivan, Shannon S., Mahaffey, Kenneth W., Williams, Donna, Simard, Edgar P., Schaack, Terry

2025

Overview

To evaluate remote participant engagement in a clinical study over time, based on data from the Project Baseline Health Study (PBHS), a hybrid in-person and virtual study. The PBHS enrolled 2,502 adult US residents from March 3, 2017 to April 26, 2019, with a ≤5-year follow-up. We summarized 4-year retention and rates of longitudinal patient-reported outcome survey completion. We investigated participant characteristics for their associations with quarterly remote survey completion using regression models. Of the total participants (  = 2,502), 94% remained enrolled after 4 years and 60% completed all annual visits; 2,490 participants stayed enrolled for at least one quarter. The median (IQR) number of remote electronic survey sets completed was 8 (3-12), of a possible 16. Age [odds ratio (OR), >70 vs. ≤30 years: 2.56; 95% CI: 2.24-2.94] and education (OR, advanced degree vs. ≤high school: 1.36; 95% CI: 1.22-1.52) were positively associated with remote survey completion. Participants with lower odds of completion were Black (OR vs. White: 0.73; 95% CI: 0.67-0.80), Hispanic (OR vs. non-Hispanic: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.77-0.93), or had at least mild symptoms of depression (OR vs. without: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.84-0.96) or anxiety (OR vs. without: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.78-0.90). Overall, 94% of PBHS participants remained enrolled after four years. Age, race, ethnicity, income, education, and symptomatic depression/anxiety were significantly associated with longitudinal remote questionnaire completion. These findings on engagement over time may inform future longitudinal study design. Clinicaltrials.gov, identifier (NCT03154346).

• Publisher: Frontiers Media SA,Frontiers Media S.A
• Subject: Clinical outcomes / Cohort analysis / cohort study / Data collection / Digital Health / Enrollments / Generalized anxiety disorder / Generalized linear models / Longitudinal studies / Observational studies / participant retention / Participation / patient-reported outcomes / Population / Quality of life / Questionnaires / remote study / research participant engagement / Retention / social determinants of health / Sociodemographics