Methods and lessons from conducting a national study of primary care nurse practitioners

Researchers often rely on survey data to assess quality, cost, and outcomes of nurse practitioner (NP) care delivery. Achieving sufficient response rates with traditional survey methods (email, mail, phone calls) has become increasingly challenging. Moreover, survey data collection requires significant financial and labor resources, calling into question the efficiency of current approaches to survey data collection.

This study aims to describe survey data collection from a national sample of primary care NPs caring for persons living with dementia and discuss the methods and response rate in the context of challenges conducting survey-based research.

This was a cross-sectional survey conducted from November 2021 to October 2023 in 3 waves using a modified Dillman approach. The first wave was sent through physical mailings, and the second wave through email. After low response rates, the sampling frame was updated to include NPs not originally captured in the sampling frame.

The sampling frame included 11,518 NPs. Between 3 data collection waves, 3 survey mailings with 8 postcard reminders and 2 email surveys with 12 email reminders were sent. The response rate was 16.4% ( N = 968).

Data collection took over 2 years as the approaches were modified due to low response. By the time addresses were obtained and surveys sent, it was likely that many addresses were no longer accurate. Our response rate is consistent with declining survey response rates among other health professions.

Survey research may require more efficient data collection methods, such as targeted social media advertisements.