Table 1.

REGARDS procedures and methods of data collection

Component	Baseline telephone Interview	In-home Exam	Self-administered and mailed	Every 6 months telephone call	Every 2 years telephone call
Verbal Consent	X
Medical history	X
Demographics	X
Stroke free status	X			X
Physical activity	X
Depression	X
Cognitive screening*	X*
Six Item Screener**	X**			X**
Three-test battery†					X
Perceived health/quality of life	X
Social support	X
Potential caregiver status	X
Written consent		X
Blood collection		X
Urine collection		X
Height, weight, waist circumference		X
Blood pressure, pulse		X
Electrocardiography		X
Medications used in the past 2 weeks		X
Residential history			X
Dietary intake			X
Family history			X

^*cognitive status was judged by the computer assisted telephone interview (CATI) interviewer. Exclusion was for low ability to communicate (express and comprehend) in English as rated by the study staff based on the telephone conversation to that point of the screening. It included difficulties with hearing, articulation, accent, and general confusion that interfered with the assessment.

^**The six item screener was added to the baseline CATI 11 months after enrollment began (December 2003) and then administered yearly via CATI

^†The three-test battery consists of the word list learning (WLL), word list recall (WLR), and animal fluency (AF) tests. They were added to the follow-up CATI calls in 2006 and administered every 2 years. WLL/WLR and AF were initially administered on different calls to reduce participant burden, but were shifted to the same call in 2008 such that the cognitive battery was administered as a unit.