1. Reviewer

• Fill in your Reviewer ID, which we will give to you when you first approach us with an interest in First Contact. If you don't have one please request one by writing to firstcontact@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk.
• In the first Data Collection form you fill in (for your first randomised investigator) please fill in the remaining boxes in this section. If these details remain unchanged you need not fill them in on subsequent forms. If you expect to participate in First Contact within more than one review, please be sure to state the review with which this investigator is associated.

2. Investigator

• Your study ID for this investigator is chosen by you. We would expect you to use the ID you intend to use in RevMan, which usually comprises the first author's surname and the year of publication.
• The date last known at address is the date of the most recent document you have seen that contains the address you intend to write to. Please use dd/mm/yyyy format for all dates. For example, 8th April 1971 would be written 08/04/1971.
• The amount of information to be requested should describe the total number of simple questions you wish to ask, and/or numerical quantities you wish to request, from the investigator. We would expect you to ask for specific facts rather than descriptive answers. However, questions such as 'describe the intervention' may sometimes be appropriate; complex questions like these should normally be described as Medium or Large amounts.
• You should choose in advance your mode of contact, that is whether you would like to randomise the investigator to different approaches using email or different approaches using surface mail. We do not include a comparison of email versus surface mail in First Contact.
• Previous contact with the investigator includes mail / email / telephone correspondence and personal contact such as at a professional meeting. Answer this question by asking yourself, 'would this investigator recognise my name?'. If the answer to this question is 'yes' because you are well known in your field then answer Yes to this question even if you have not strictly had personal contact with the investigator.
• You may determine whether an investigator is involved with the Cochrane Collaboration by searching the relevant parts of The Cochrane Library for an indication that he or she is attached to a Cochrane entity.

3. Assignment

• We will send this back to you. Remember to write down the Unique First Contact Identifier (FC ID) for this investigator at the top of this page, and at the top of page 2 (process and results) of the Data Collection form.

4. Control or Experimental Intervention

• Please tick boxes to confirm whether letters and enclosed documents were sent, give dates and destination countries. If you are aware of the approximate cost of the communication, please write this down, stating the currency. Please list additional aspects of the intervention you implement that may be related to response rates, including any from the following list, using the given abbreviations if convenient:
  headed paper (HP) / signature of an authoritative person (SA) / return envelope (RE) / printed labels (PL) / envelope marked to open (EO) / business or organisation envelope (BE) / physical or monetary incentive (MI)

Any other attempts to contact the investigator

• Please detail any other attempts you make to contact the investigator (or a fellow investigator from this study)

5. Diary

• Please use the Diary to record all communications you receive from the investigator, continuing on a new sheet of paper as necessary. 'Response to' indicates the most recent communication you believe they had received from you at the time. New contact details include those for the investigator you approached or a fellow investigator from the same study. Some requested information includes any piece of information that you specifically requested from the study in order to represent it in your review, which should not include new contact details.

6. Outcomes

• Perfect response = retrieving all the information you requested within 12 weeks of posting the first letter or email.
• Satisfactory response = retrieving sufficient information to enable the study to be included in your review with no important gaps, even though you did not get a perfect response, within 12 weeks of posting the first letter or email.
• Inadequate response = retrieving some of the information that you requested, but not enough to include the study in your review without some important gaps remaining, within 12 weeks of posting the first letter or email.
• Secondary outcome: Receiving any response from anyone includes, for example, a perfect, satisfactory or unsatisfactory response; discovering that the data have been destroyed; discovering the investigator is deceased; receiving new contact details (whether or not this leads to retrieval of missing information).

7. Comments

• Please use the comments box to describe anything unusual or interesting about your communications with this investigator. Feel free to continue on a new sheet of paper as necessary, and please write legibly!

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