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Maximizing follow‐up in longitudinal studies of traumatized populations
Author(s) -
Scott Christy K.,
Sonis Jeffrey,
Creamer Mark,
Dennis Michael L.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of traumatic stress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.259
H-Index - 134
eISSN - 1573-6598
pISSN - 0894-9867
DOI - 10.1002/jts.20186
Subject(s) - attrition , longitudinal study , psychology , longitudinal data , longitudinal sample , mental health , posttraumatic stress , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , psychiatry , demography , medicine , sociology , dentistry , pathology
Although longitudinal research is essential in understanding the nature and course of posttraumatic mental health problems, high rates of attrition often threaten the internal validity of such studies and make results hard to interpret. C. K. Scott (2004) developed an approach to minimizing attrition in longitudinal studies that consistently yielded retention rates in excess of 90% through to 2‐year follow‐up. In this article, the authors discuss the interface between trauma exposure and participation in longitudinal research, before describing in detail a model to address those effects. The effectiveness of the model is examined with reference to traumatic stress in a large community sample ( N = 887) with eight waves of data over 2 years.