Summary of findings 2. Questionnaire design: addition of diary to usual follow‐up vs usual follow‐up.

Addition of diary to usual follow‐up compared with usual follow‐up for trial retention
Patient or population: trial participants being followed up for data collection Settings: any setting Intervention: diary Comparison: no diary
Outcomes	Illustrative comparative risks* (95% CI)		Relative effect (95% CI)	No of Participants (studies)	Certainty of the evidence (GRADE)
	Assumed risk	Corresponding risk
	Diary	No diary
Retention [follow‐up]	Lowa		RR 0.97 (0.96 to 0.98)	9906 (2)	⊕⊕⊕⊝ moderate
	25 per 100	24 per 100 (24 to 25)
	Mediuma
	50 per 100	49 per 100 (48 to 49)
	Higha
	80 per 100	78 per 100 (77 to 78)
*The basis for the assumed risk (e.g. the median control group risk across studies) is provided in footnotes. The effect of not including a diary (and its 95% confidence interval) is based on the assumed risk in the comparison group and the relative effect of the intervention (and its 95% CI). CI: confidence interval; RR: risk ratio.
GRADE Working Group grades of evidence High certainty: we are very confident that the true effect lies close to that of the estimate of the effect. Moderate certainty: we are moderately confident in the effect estimate; the true effect is likely to be close to the estimate of the effect, but there is a possibility that it is substantially different. Low certainty: our confidence in the effect estimate is limited; the true effect may be substantially different from the estimate of the effect. Very low certainty: we have very little confidence in the effect estimate; the true effect is likely to be substantially different from the estimate of effect.
aWe selected low, medium and high illustrative retention levels of 25%, 50% and 80% based on prior experience with trial retention and evidence from the literature. For example, it has been previously stated that it is common for up to 20% trial participants to drop out before the trial finishes (Walsh 2015), as such we set the upper limit of good retention as 80%. The other extreme of 25% was informed by evidence that some trials (largely internet based) can have retention as low as 10% to 25% (Murray 2009). The mid point of 50% was a judgement made by the review team and was deemed appropriate given the evidence for the other parameters.