title: What Works? An Empirical Perspective on How to Retain Youth in Longitudinal Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Substance Risk Reduction Studies.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Low retention rates are a problem for longitudinal studies involving adolescents, and this is particularly true for justice-involved youth.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study evaluates (1) strategies used to retain high-risk adolescents participating in a longitudinal research project; (2) the extent to which retention efforts were different in a justice-involved versus a non-justice-involved (school-based) sample; and (3) differential characteristics of justice-involved versus school-based adolescents that might explain differences in retention difficulty.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared with the school-based youth, justice-involved youth required significantly more phone calls to be successfully reached. Additionally, baseline substance use (alcohol and marijuana use frequency) was higher in the justice-involved sample and significantly related to retention difficulty.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  High retention rates for justice-involved and substance-using youth are possible with focused efforts on frequent communication and effortful contact.
authors.affiliation: a Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS , Yale University , New Haven , Connecticut , USA.
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Montanaro
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychiatry , University of New Mexico , Albuquerque , New Mexico , USA.
authors.forename: Sarah W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Feldstein Ewing
authors.affiliation: c Department of Psychology and Neuroscience , The University of Colorado at Boulder , Boulder , Colorado , USA.
authors.forename: Angela D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Bryan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D003416:Criminal Law; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010352:Patient Dropouts / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D035842:Research Subjects / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D040242:Risk Reduction Behavior; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control*
keywords: Alcohol; HIV prevention; adolescents; marijuana; retention