General Practitioners' Participation in a Large, Multicountry Combined General Practitioner-Patient Survey:...

Area of Science:

• Primary Care Research
• General Practice
• Health Services Research

Background:

• General Practitioners (GPs) are vital for primary care performance research.
• The QUALICOPC study involved a large, multicountry survey of GPs and their patients.
• Understanding GP participation is key to successful primary care research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the recruitment procedures for a multicountry primary care study.
• To explore variations in GP participation rates across different European countries.

Main Methods:

• Descriptive analyses were employed to document recruitment processes.
• Hypotheses were assessed to explain variations in GP participation between countries.
• The study involved surveys in 31 European countries, with GPs primarily selected via random sampling.

Main Results:

• The median GP participation rate across countries was 30%.
• Implementation of the study varied significantly between participating countries.
• Both financial incentives (e.g., GP payment systems) and non-financial factors (e.g., survey burden) influenced participation rates.

Conclusions:

• GP participation in research is demonstrably influenced by national contexts.
• Uniform implementation of complex data collection across countries is challenging.
• Study procedures must be adapted to suit the specific context of each country.