Open AccessJournal Article
Telephone versus postal surveys of general practitioners: methodological considerations.
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TLDR
It is suggested that non-response to the postal survey was associated with lack of activity in the study area and a social desirability bias may have been introduced.Abstract:
BACKGROUND. High response rates to surveys help to maintain the representativeness of the sample. AIM. In the course of a wider investigation into counselling services within general practice it was decided to assess the feasibility of increasing the response rate by telephone follow up of non-respondents to a postal survey. METHOD. A postal survey was undertaken of a random sample of 1732 general practitioners followed by telephone administration of the questionnaire to non-respondents. The identical questionnaire was administered by telephone to a separate random sample of 206 general practitioners. RESULTS. Of 1732 general practitioners first approached by mail, 1683 were still in post of whom 881 (52%) completed the postal questionnaire and a further 494 (29%) the telephone interview. Of 206 general practitioners first contacted by telephone, 197 were still in post of whom 167 (85%) completed interviews. Compared with doctors first approached by mail, those first approached by telephone were significantly more likely to report having a partner with a special interest in psychiatry (P < 0.01); and a general practitioner, practice nurse or health visitor who worked as a counsellor (P < 0.01 in each case). A comparison of doctors first approached by telephone with those who completed telephone interviews after failing to respond to the postal questionnaire showed that postal non-respondents were significantly less likely to report having a general practitioner, practice nurse, health visitor or community psychiatric nurse who worked as a counsellor (P < 0.01 in each case). CONCLUSION. These findings suggest that non-response to the postal survey was associated with lack of activity in the study area. Telephone administration of questionnaires to postal non-respondents increased response rates to above 80% but, as telephone administration enhanced the reporting of counsellors, a social desirability bias may have been introduced.read more
Citations
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Methodologies for Improving Response Rates in Surveys of Physicians A Systematic Review
TL;DR: Postal and telephone strategies have generally been more successful than have fax or Web-based approaches and use of first-class stamps on return envelopes and questionnaires designed to be brief, personalized, and endorsed by legitimizing professional associations were also more likely to be successful.
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Exploring physician specialist response rates to web-based surveys
Ceara Tess Cunningham,Hude Quan,Brenda R. Hemmelgarn,Tom Noseworthy,Cynthia A. Beck,Elijah Dixon,Susan Samuel,William A. Ghali,Lindsay L Sykes,Nathalie Jette +9 more
TL;DR: The authors' survey results provide a look into the challenges of collecting healthcare research where response rates to surveys are often low and suggest smaller monetary incentives for each individual may be a more appropriate way to increase response rates.
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Challenges in recruitment of research participants
TL;DR: Key issues are: early consideration of the impact of study design on the recruitment process; the participant's perspective; close collaboration with colleagues; the investigator’s good interpersonal, communication and organisational skills; and feedback to collaborators, associated clinicians and participants.
Journal ArticleDOI
Not another questionnaire! Maximizing the response rate, predicting non-response and assessing non-response bias in postal questionnaire studies of GPs
TL;DR: The effectiveness of follow-up procedures when undertaking a postal questionnaire study of GPs, the use of publicly available data in assessing non-response bias and the development of regression models predicting responder behaviour are investigated.
Journal ArticleDOI
General practice postal surveys: a questionnaire too far?
Brian R McAvoy,Eileen Kaner +1 more
TL;DR: Approaches that might reverse this trend include monitoring all research activities going on in an area to ensure that practices are not overused, giving general practitioners incentives to participate, and improving the relevance of research and the quality of questionnaires.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Factors affecting response rates to mailed questionnaires: A quantitative analysis of the published literature.
TL;DR: In this article, a causal model of the final response rate, including initial response, was presented to show that high response rates are achievable by manipulating the costs of responding and the perceived importance of both the research and the individual response.
Journal ArticleDOI
Telephone surveys in public health research.
Alfred C. Marcus,Lori A. Crane +1 more
TL;DR: Computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) represents one of the most important and innovative technologic advances in health survey research in recent years and ideally suited for moderate- to large-sample surveys.
Journal ArticleDOI
Counsellors in English and Welsh general practices: their nature and distribution.
TL;DR: Counselling services are wide-spread in general practice, but a high proportion of counsellors lack qualifications, and many may be referred problems outside their knowledge.
Journal ArticleDOI
Further Evidence on Factors Affecting Response Rates to Mailed Questionnaires
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors replicated and supplemented work reported by Heberlein and Baumgartner in ASR 43 (1978) on the net effect of factors affecting response rates to mailed questionnaires.