Difficulty of follow-up and posttreatment functioning among depressed patients.

Evaluations of treatment outcome may obtain positively biased findings by failing to reassess patients who are difficult to follow and who may also be functioning more poorly than those who are successfully followed. We consider whether difficulty of follow-up is related to pre- and posttreatment functioning by reassessing 95% of a sample of 424 depressed patients after a 12-month interval. In contrast to earlier findings with other patient populations (e.g., alcoholic patients), there was no strong or consistent tendency for depressed patients who were more difficult to follow to be functioning more poorly after treatment. Moreover, poor functioning at treatment intake was not predictive of later difficulty of follow-up. However, patients who were younger, single, and of lower occupational level were somewhat more difficult to follow.