The ICU Feedback Study: comparing response rate of paper based questionnaires versus electronic questionnaires in patients with a recent intensive care stay.

In this randomised cohort study, we plan to contact groups of patients at one of three different time points (3, 6 and 12 months) following ICU discharge (we will not contact every patient at every time point but but rather every patient at one specific time point, depending on the date of ICU discharge and the date of enrollment). We will randomise patients into two groups, one group will be asked to complete a 30 minute online questionnaire with non-responders being provided with a paper questionnaire while the other group will be provided with the same questionnaire but only in paper form. This questionnaire will consist of the following outcome questionnaires: EQ-5D (descriptive system of five domains: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression + VAS), HADS (detects features of depression and anxiety in the out-patient setting) and IES-R (self-rating scale that measures traumatic stress responses related to PTSD after a variety of traumatic events) together with a few questions to asses their preferred means of being contacted, their satisfaction about the way the study is conducted and a few open questions about their ICU experience. We hope to assess the overall response rate, the response rate in relation to the time period following ICU discharge and the effect of questionnaire modality on response rate. Patients in the multimodal group will be sent an email (if an email address was provided at consent) or letter that contains a web address 14 days prior to their 3, 6 or 12-month time point. For patients who have provided an email address and if no response has been received, a further email will be sent after 3 days, up to a total of 3 repeat requests. If no response has been obtained after a further 5 days (14 days post initial email) a letter with a paper questionnaire will be sent with a pre-paid envelope for its return. We will call all non-responders after a further 7 days. A final open disclosure and thank you letter will be sent 7 days after that. Patients in the paper group will be contacted through: - paper mail for the enrollment, questionnaire and repeat questionnaire - by phone if the patients does not respond to the enrollment letter or paper questionnaire. Adherence to the forms in the online questionnaires will be added to an online database (Redcap) directly, the form information from the paper questionnaires will be manually added to the online database (Redcap).