Assessment of difficulties encountered in psychiatric follow-up studies

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Abstract
To stress some of the socio-cultural reasons hindering psychiatric follow-up studies in Iran, 107 depressed patients were followed up for a period of about 3 yr. Home visits were made, following 2 successive letters to which only 5 patients replied; 45 patients were interviewed, 9 had moved, 4 refused interviewing, 2 were dead and the addresses or names of 47 were wrong. Wrong names and addresses, in addition to the illiteracy, change of address and the stigma of mental illness were the major causes of untraceability. To make follow-up studies feasible, as the patients and their relatives are the main sources of information, a more efficient registration system should be developed.

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