End of Follow-up Criteria include which of the following?

• A. Outcome only
• B. Death and administrative end
• C. Loss to follow-up and death
• D. Outcome; loss to follow-up; administrative end; death (competing risk)

Answer: (D)

End of follow-up is about when a participant stops contributing data to the study. It isn’t limited to whether the outcome of interest occurs. It also includes censoring events that prevent observation of the outcome, such as losing contact (loss to follow-up), the study ending at a predefined calendar time (administrative end), or death. Death matters as a competing risk because once it happens, the outcome of interest can no longer be observed. Because all of these scenarios can end a participant’s follow-up, the best answer includes outcome, loss to follow-up, administrative end, and death.