What is lost to follow-up in HIV?
Loss to follow-up (LTFU) is a term used to classify patients no longer being seen in a clinical care program, including HIV treatment programs. It is unclear if these patients have transferred their care services elsewhere, died, or if there are other reasons for their LTFU.
What causes loss to follow-up?
Common reasons for loss to follow-up were social or structural. These included problems with transportation, finances, and work/child care responsibilities. Among those lost to follow-up, subsequent outcomes were heterogeneous.
Why is it important to minimize loss to follow-up?
Loss to follow up is a problem for two main reasons: It reduces the effective sample size because the investigators will be missing outcome measures on those who are lost. If follow up rates differ among comparison groups and if attrition is related to the outcome, the results of the study can be biased.
What do you do with loss to follow-up data?
The best strategy to avert missing data is to prevent loss to follow-up. Designing the study carefully, training staff, implementing data quality procedures, and developing mechanisms to retain and contact participants are key.
How do I stop losing to follow up?
Since there is no way of predictiing the effects of loss to follow up, researchers do their best to reduce it by maintaining contact with participants at regular intervals, collecting contact information from friends or relatives that would know how to reach a participant should s/he move, using the National Death …
How do you define loss to follow up?
In clinical medicine and research, loss to follow up refers to a person who has not returned for continued care or evaluation (e.g., because of death, disability, relocation, or drop-out).
What type of bias is loss to follow up?
Selection bias due to loss to follow up is the absolute or relative bias that arises from how participants are selected out of a given risk set 3.
How many patients are lost to follow up?
In this study, 61% of patients were lost to follow up. The researchers identified several qualities that can be considered risk factors for losing patients to follow up. Those whose primary language isn’t English have nearly two times the risk of being lost to follow up, as do patients between the ages of 56 and 65.
How do you define loss to follow-up?
Is loss to follow-up a bias?
Losses to follow-up can introduce bias (a deviation of the observed value of the measure of association from the value that would have been observed in the absence of bias) if there are differences in likelihood of loss to follow-up that are related to exposure status and outcome.
What is the difference between follow up and follow up?
Is it follow up or follow-up? Follow up is a verb phrase that means to pursue or to check on something. Follow-up is a noun or an adjective that refers to a continuation or review. Follow up is a verb.
What is loss to follow up in HIV?
[…] HIV programs are often assessed by the proportion of patients who are alive and retained in care; however some patients are categorized as lost to follow-up (LTF) and have unknown vital status. LTF is not an outcome but a mixed category of patients who have undocumented death, transfer and disengagement from care.
Is there a universal definition of loss to follow-up?
Although patient attrition is recognized as a threat to the long-term success of antiretroviral therapy programs worldwide, there is no universal definition for classifying patients as lost to follow-up (LTFU). We analyzed data from health facilities across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to empirically determine a standard LTFU definition.
How much loss to follow up can cause bias?
Some have suggested that <5% loss leads to little bias, while >20% poses serious threats to validity 1. This may be a good rule of thumb, but keep in mind that even small proportions of patients lost to follow-up can cause significant bias 2.
What is the loss to follow up rate for PMC?
Many would consider the loss to follow-up rate to be 9 (18%) of 49 in treatment A and 11 (21%) of 52 in treatment B using as the denominator only those that were treated. However, the real proportion lost to follow-up must consider those who were randomly assigned, even if they did not receive treatment.