Plans to promote participant retention and complete follow-up {18b}
Multiple strategies are used to retain participants over the duration of the study, including (1) providing reminders (e.g., calls, texts) before study data collection visits; (2) limiting participant burden by scheduling data collection study visits when participants are already attending the SUD treatment center; (3) using limited release of medical information forms for EMR abstraction; (4) providing incentives after completion of data collection visits; (5) paying for car ride services (e.g., Uber) and providing parking vouchers to nearby parking garages so participants can park during study visits; (6) collecting contact information of friends and family members who are likely to know the location of subjects should they be temporarily out of contact; and (7) sharing information about the study with staff and providers across hospital departments (e.g., Neonatology, General Pediatrics, Ob/Gyn). In addition, our approach to analyzing the data will allow us to include subjects in analyses who provide partial data due to premature study dropout. Comparisons between study subjects who are retained and who drop out will be conducted to determine biases and non-random patterns of study attrition.