Barriers to Completion of a Family Health History Tool and Increasing Subject Retention

Family Health Histories (FHH) are crucial for identifying disease risk factors, and such information is paramount to the diagnosis, treatment, and long term care of patients. Many if not most human diseases include a hereditary component. Despite the recognized importance of health history information, the FHH of many Americans remains uncaptured. This study examined impediments to FHH completion and evaluated a strategy for increasing completion. Participants were givenreminder prompts, offers of assistance, and surveyed to identify barriers and effective methods to improve FHH completion. The most frequently cited barrier was that the participant did not remember being part of the study or anything about the study. Although the reminder phone prompts produced a modest increase in participation, this strategy was time consuming and inefficient. The possibilities that providing additional information during the recruitment process and earlier reminder phone calls after registration may improve FHH participation and completion rates warrants further investigation.