Notwithstanding implications for recruitment rates, retention and data quality in longitudinal, population-based studies, we believe that ignoring these relationships presents a missed opportunity to systematically analyze the changes that may indeed be brought about by the 'intervention' of establishing an HDSS site.
The DSMC will review the quarterly reports on recruitment, participant retention, study safety and data quality, and monitor study progress.
Besides enrollment, data quality and patient retention obviously need to be considered as well [ 5, 13].
Periodic evaluation of progress on the study, including assessments of data quality, recruitment and retention, and participant risk versus benefit.
The valid GPS data was used to both maintain data quality and maximize data retention for analysis.
Protein identification, quantification, and data quality of exact mass retention time clusters (EMRTs), which are the recorded mass species associated to their exact masses and retention times, were evaluated.
The overall data retention rate was high (average of 82.72%), and the data quality was acceptable.
Although the proportion of patients lost to follow-up in the present study (9.7%) was comparable to other African studies [ 12, 13], data quality would be improved with better cohort retention.
However, we can hypothesise that in such situations the data quality might be affected in both monitoring systems, calling into question patient retention in estimates at the specific facility regardless of calculation method.
