Elsevier

Preventive Medicine

Volume 25, Issue 5, September 1996, Pages 554-560
Preventive Medicine

Regular Article
Factors Affecting Attrition in a Longitudinal Smoking Prevention Study

https://doi.org/10.1006/pmed.1996.0089Get rights and content

Abstract

Background.In longitudinal smoking prevention studies, a difficulty in evaluating treatment effects is understanding whether bias is associated with those who do not complete the study. This study presents the significant predictors of attrition and suggests how to reduce attrition bias in evaluating program effects.Methods.Survival analysis methods were used to assess factors associated with attrition at different time points of the study.Results.Results of the analysis indicate that those who drop out tend to be of lower academic achievement, have lower tobacco and health knowledge, and have lower social influence/resistance skills knowledge, and are more likely to be smokers and to be marijuana users. Blacks are more likely to drop out than the other ethnic groups. Gender is not a significant predictor for dropout. The dropout rates among the treatment conditions are significantly different.Conclusions.The findings of this study demonstrate that attritions in longitudinal smoking prevention studies are not at random. By considering the characteristics of dropouts, one can reduce attrition bias using available procedures and can take appropriate strategies for reducing dropout rates in future smoking prevention studies.

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Collection of data for this research was supported by Grant R01-DA0348 from the National Institute of Drug Abuse to B. R. Flay, W. B. Hansen and C. A. Johnson. The analyses reported here were completed with support from Grant R01-DA06307 to B. R. Flay and J. Richardson. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Ohidul Siddiqui, Prevention Research Center (M/C 275), University of Illinois at Chicago, 850 West Jackson Boulevard, Suite 400, Chicago, Illinois 60607-3025.

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