Surveying clinicians by web: current issues in design and administration.

Area of Science:

• Health services research
• Survey methodology
• Clinical research

Background:

• Web surveys offer advantages in speed, cost, and versatility for clinician research.
• Low response rates remain a significant challenge for online provider surveys.
• Existing literature provides general recommendations for improving survey participation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide an evidence-based overview of methods for conducting online surveys with healthcare providers.
• To highlight the advantages and disadvantages of web-based provider surveys.
• To review differences in response rates between web and mail surveys for clinicians.

Main Methods:

• Review of best practices and literature on online survey methods for clinicians.
• Examination of design features impacting online survey participation and data quality.
• Analysis of factors including sample frames, incentives, contact strategies, mixed-mode approaches, and questionnaire length.

Main Results:

• Online survey design features significantly influence clinician participation and data quality.
• Key factors affecting response rates include incentives, contact methods, and survey length.
• Differences exist in response rates between web and mail survey modalities for clinicians.

Conclusions:

• Implementing evidence-based design features can optimize online provider surveys.
• Further empirical research is needed to identify cost-effective combinations of incentives and contact approaches.
• Optimizing web-based survey designs is essential for maximizing response rates and data quality in clinician research.