Follow-up non-attendance after long-bone fractures in a low-resource setting: a prospective study of predictors and interventions to increase attendance rates.

Background: While the majority of traumatic injuries occur in low- and middle-income countries, the published literature comes chiefly from high-income countries due to poor follow-up. Clinical and radiographic post-surgical trauma follow-up is essential to high-quality research and objective monitoring for healing and/or complications. This study aimed to identify the predictors of follow-up non-attendance in a low-resource setting and investigate the extent to which interventional efforts based on mobile phone technology (MPT) and home visits improved the follow-up rates for fractures treated with SIGN nails.

Methods: This was a prospective study of 594 patients with long-bone fractures. Socio-demographic (e.g. age, gender, marital status, education level, etc.) and clinical (e.g. fracture type, concomitant injuries, comorbidity, etc.) data were collected on each patient. Before discharge, the importance of follow-up was explained to patients and their relations. They were encouraged to attend even if they felt well. Their residential addresses and telephone numbers were validated and securely stored. Patients who missed their appointments were contacted by phone. Those who failed to honour 2 or 3 rescheduled appointments were visited in their home. The patients were divided into those who returned for the primarily scheduled follow-up without prompting (volition group) and those who did not come (non-attenders). Univariate analyses and binary logistic regression were conducted to determine the significant predictors of non-attendance.

Results: The proportion of patients in the volition group reduced from 96.1% at 6 weeks to 53.0% at 12 weeks and 39.2% at 6 months. However, interventional efforts increased these values to 98.5%, 92.5%, and 72.4% respectively. Walking unaided before the primarily scheduled 12-week appointment was the major reason for not attending the follow-up. Education, occupation, post-operative length of hospital stay (PLOS) and infection were significantly associated with non-attendance but younger age, long distances from the hospital, being separated or divorced, difficulty paying the in-patient care bill, closed fracture, having no (or a non-limb) concomitant injury, achieving painless weight bearing ≤ 6 weeks post-operatively and needing no additional surgery were independent predictors of non-attendance.

Conclusions: Our study sheds light on the predictors of follow-up non-attendance and demonstrates how interventional efforts improved attendance rates in a low-resource setting. In addition, efforts that better the socio-economic status of people such as more-encompassing health insurance coverage and greater work flexibility can improve the follow-up attendance rates.