Final answer:
The return value of a stored procedure is primarily used to notify if it has completed successfully, with zero implying success and non-zero indicating an error or specific status.
Step-by-step explanation:
The return value of a stored procedure is typically used to indicate to the calling program whether the stored procedure completed successfully. This is important for error handling in database applications. If a stored procedure is executed correctly, it commonly returns a value of zero.
However, it may return a non-zero value to indicate an error or a specific status. The return value is not used to receive an input parameter from the calling program nor to return an output parameter; these tasks are accomplished using input and output parameters respectively.