After the initial postal distribution three rounds of reminders were conducted.
After three rounds of reminders we received 148 questionnaires from 201 primary care professionals from 93% (28/30) of the practices.
The questionnaire itself was anonymous but coded with a reference number to identify the respondent for the lucky draw and for subsequent rounds of reminders.
Only a few minutes were required to issue each reminder letter or email in the first and second rounds of reminders, by the end of which 644 accelerometers (90% of 714 issues) had been retrieved (Table 1, Figure 2).
Our results therefore suggest that researchers should be prepared to issue multiple rounds of reminders to retrieve their devices and that doing so may remain cost-effective if the effort expended is gradually increased between rounds.
Since each Actigraph cost approximately £200 ($320), the average value of equipment recovered as a result of each reminder was over £100 ($160) in each round (Table 1), even though the latter rounds of reminders recovered only a small proportion of the total number of devices.
In one study, Lairson and colleagues randomized their patients who received FOBT and flexible sigmoidoscopy (FS) referrals to either two rounds of mailed reminders, two rounds of tailored mailed reminders, or two rounds of reminder telephone calls along with the tailored mailed reminder [ 18].
The ICER of two rounds of mailed reminders was $319 per additional patient screened [ 18].
Iceland's players are in there bobbing up and down like a bunch of non‑leaguers ecstatic at being drawn against Everton in the third round of the Cup, a reminder of the miniature scale of this obsessive social experiment.
The expected round of cuts is a stark reminder of a basic truth on Wall Street: in good times, you get rich; in bad times, you get fired.
After 5 rounds of invitations and reminders a total of 2,426 completed the questionnaire fully or in part, yielding a response rate of 62.4%.
