Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 27, 2026
06:28
E-Patient Counseling Trial (E-PACO): Computer Based Education versus Nurse Counseling for Patients to Prepare for Colonoscopy
Published on: August 1, 2019
How to obtain excellent response rates when surveying physicians
1Centre for Studies in Family Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. ssccat@uwo.ca
Family Practice
|December 17, 2008
Summary
Maximize survey response rates in primary health care research by using monetary incentives and recorded delivery. These methods significantly boost physician participation, improving data quality for practice profile studies.
Area of Science:
- Health Services Research
- Survey Methodology
- Primary Health Care Research
Background:
- Physician surveys are crucial for understanding practice profiles, experiences, and attitudes in primary health care.
- Maximizing survey response rates is essential for the validity and reliability of research findings.
- The Centre for Studies in Family Medicine has conducted multiple physician surveys to gather vital health care data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify and implement effective techniques for maximizing response rates in mailed physician surveys.
- To demonstrate the impact of specific strategies on survey return rates in family practice research.
- To provide evidence supporting the use of incentives and recorded delivery in survey research.
Main Methods:
- Conducted four distinct mailed surveys of physicians between 2001 and 2004 using a modified Dillman approach.
- Varied sampling strategies, topics, question types, and response formats across surveys.
- Compared response rates between a survey with no incentives/recorded delivery and those utilizing gift certificates and recorded delivery/registered mail.
Main Results:
- The initial survey without incentives or recorded delivery achieved a 48% response rate.
- Subsequent surveys employing gift certificates and recorded delivery/registered mail achieved significantly higher response rates of 76%, 74%, and 74%.
- Recorded delivery prioritized survey mail, and gift certificates compensated physicians for their time, enhancing appreciation.
Conclusions:
- Monetary incentives (gift certificates) and recorded delivery/registered mail, combined with the Dillman approach, strongly increase physician survey response rates.
- These strategies are recommended for primary health care researchers to improve data quality and justify funding requests.
- Implementing these evidence-based techniques enhances the overall quality and impact of primary health care research.
Related Concept Videos
02:16Surveys
Often, psychologists develop surveys as a means of gathering data. Surveys are lists of questions to be answered by research participants, and can be delivered as paper-and-pencil questionnaires, administered electronically, or conducted verbally. Generally, the survey itself can be completed in a short time, and the ease of administering a survey makes it easy to collect data from a large number of people.
01:08Obedience
According to obedience research, we may harm others under the forceful pressures of an authority figure (Milgram, 1974). How about if the inappropriate orders were delivered with less force? The increasing interdependence between nurses and physicians compelled Hofling and his colleagues to explore nurses’ reactions to a potentially harmful medical request made by the perceived authority figure, the doctor (Hofling, Brotzman, Dalrymple, Graves, & Pierce, 1966). In this situation, obedience...
01:07Data Collection by Survey
The systematic method of obtaining and analyzing accurate information of a population is called data collection. A survey is a standard method of data collection that involves collecting information from a target human population about their experience, opinion, or knowledge of a product, service, or process. The responses are recorded and interpreted. The most common survey examples are written questionnaires, face-to-face or telephonic conversations, focus groups, and electronic (e-mail or...
01:26Types of Reports III: Telephone and Verbal Reports
Telephone and Verbal Reports in healthcare settings are two communication methods for conveying therapeutic instructions from healthcare providers to nurses or other healthcare staff.
Here's an overview of each type:
Telephone Orders
Here's an overview of each type:
Telephone Orders
01:03Dose-Response Relationship: Overview
Agonists can bind with and activate receptors, resulting in the formation of drug-receptor complexes. Once formed, these complexes catalyze many biochemical processes at the cellular level and subsequently induce a pharmacologic response. The degree of response is directly proportional to the fraction of activated receptors, which in turn, depends on the concentration of the drug at the receptor site as well as the sensitivity of the receptor. An increase in the administered dose contributes to...
01:22Dose-Response Relationship: Potency and Efficacy
The potency of a drug is the measure of its ability to produce a biological response and can be compared by looking at the half-maximum effective concentration or EC50 values of different drugs. A lower EC50 value indicates higher potency of the drug. In the dose–response curve of two antihypertensive drugs, candesartan and irbesartan, a significant difference is observed in their EC50 values. A lower EC50 value for candesartan indicates that it is more potent than irbesartan, as it produces...