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PRP has been very fortunate, and perhaps unique among research studies of cohorts of patients whose therapies have been followed over their course and outcome, to have been able to secure comprehensive follow-up data at the specified time1 on the entire sample, with zero attrition. Even more remarkable is that additional follow-up information has been obtained for a large majority of the patients (actually 32, just over 75% of the sample) for periods up to 24 years after the official Termination Study. That we could ensure so comprehensive a follow-up study reflected a combination of circumstances peculiar to The Menninger Foundation and to PRP, each of which has been indicated in various ways:
The positions and status of the typical Menninger patient population, which make many of them (and/or their families) highly visible individuals, and therefore readily traceable into prolonged follow-up contacts almost wherever they subsequently happen to live.
The setting up of exclusion criteria for PRP that eliminated from the sample selection categories of patients who might not be readily available for Follow-Up Study (e.g., patients from foreign countries other than Canada, personnel in military service, etc.; see p.).
The enlisting of the patients' cooperation at the time of Termination Study with PRP's intent to have them return to Topeka for follow-up. The inducement was held out to them of a return visit to Topeka several years later, together with their spouses, at our expense; apart from participating in the Follow-Up Study, they could have a holiday visit with old friends they had made while living in the Menninger and the general community over the span of their treatment years.
The particular ecology of the Menninger therapeutic community, where some treatments go on for many years (even into “therapeutic lifer” status); where some ex-patients remain permanently in Topeka after having lived and worked