There were 63 non-replies, 39 who refused consent and 16 who did not return the booklet after having given consent, resulting in a response rate of 60%.
Of the 116 potential participants, 88 returned the booklets, and the data from 83 could be analysed.
One-hundred and eighty-two (81%) individuals returned the questionnaire booklet and filled in the consent form for the study, 98 of them had suffered from a previous episode of depression and 83 had never been depressed in their life.
For those patients who had initially returned the questionnaire booklet at 6 months, and remained alive, but had failed to respond at 12 months, a protocol amendment was sought and approved by the research ethics committee to allow the patient's primary care physician to be contacted.
Three hundred and forty (86%) GPs returned the post-intervention survey booklet, from 178/191 (93%) practices.
Participants were given a free-post, pre-addressed envelope for the return of the booklet.
The percentage of patients returning their booklet at the 6-month visit was relatively high (89.1%).
(1) SAT General Strategy: Don't Flip Back & Forth — Most students approach standardized tests by circling the correct answer in the test booklet, flipping to the answer sheet and bubbling in the answer, and then returning to the test booklet to tackle the next question.
You don't get more points if you return your test booklet with no writing in it.
Some educators returned students' test booklets and urged them to revise their answers, others gave pupils two days instead of one to complete their essays, and one teacher circulated copies of test questions via e-mail to her colleagues at other schools, noting that what she was doing was "probably illegal," the article says.
