Increasing Participation and Completion Rates in Questionnaire Surveys of Primary Care Patients: Cluster-Randomized...

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Clinical Research Methodology
• Patient Engagement

Background:

• Low participation and completion rates are common challenges in questionnaire-based surveys.
• Efficient patient recruitment strategies are crucial for data collection in healthcare settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate participation and completion rates of surveys administered via paper and mixed-mode (tablet or QR code) formats.
• To assess the impact of research assistant recruitment in primary care waiting rooms on survey response rates.
• To compare the effectiveness of incentives versus no incentives in paper-based surveys.

Main Methods:

• A cluster-randomized study involving 974 patients across 39 primary care practices in France.
• Patients were randomized into four groups: paper with incentive, paper without incentive, mixed-mode with tablet, and mixed-mode with QR code.
• Logistic regression analysis was used to compare participation and completion rates between different survey modes and incentive conditions.

Main Results:

• An overall participation rate of 84.4% was achieved, with no significant differences between the four study groups.
• Survey completion rates were high across all groups, with the paper-only format (99.8%) showing the highest completion rate.
• Mixed-mode options (tablet or QR code) did not yield higher participation or completion rates compared to paper-based surveys.

Conclusions:

• Recruitment by research assistants in primary care waiting rooms leads to high patient participation and survey completion.
• Paper-based questionnaires demonstrated superior completion rates compared to mixed-mode approaches.
• While mixed-mode surveys did not improve response rates, they may offer other logistical benefits; further research into incentives and diverse settings is warranted.