Postal surveys of physicians gave superior response rates over telephone interviews in a randomized trial

To compare general practitioner (GP) response to a telephone interview with response to a postal survey with three reminders in a randomized controlled trial. GPs were randomly assigned to either a telephone interview or a postal survey. GPs in the telephone group were mailed a letter of invitation...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of clinical epidemiology 2006-05, Vol.59 (5), p.521-524
Main Authors: Hocking, Jane S., Lim, Megan S.C., Read, Tim, Hellard, Margaret
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitude of Health Personnel
Biological and medical sciences
Chlamydia Infections - therapy
Epidemiology
Family Practice
Female
General aspects
General practitioners
Health Care Surveys - methods
Humans
Interviews as Topic
Male
Medical research
Medical sciences
Methodology
Physicians
Polls & surveys
Postal Service
Postal survey
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
RCT
Reminder Systems
Response rate
Response rates
Studies
Surveys and Questionnaires
Telephone
Telephone interview
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:To compare general practitioner (GP) response to a telephone interview with response to a postal survey with three reminders in a randomized controlled trial. GPs were randomly assigned to either a telephone interview or a postal survey. GPs in the telephone group were mailed a letter of invitation and asked to undertake a telephone interview. GPs in the postal group were mailed a letter of invitation and questionnaire. Non-responders were sent up to three reminders, the final by registered post. Response rates were calculated for each group. 416 GPs were randomized to the telephone interview and 451 to the postal survey. Eighty-six in the telephone group and 30 in the postal were ineligible. One hundred thirty-four GPs completed the telephone interview with a response rate of 40.6% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 35.3%, 46.1%). Two hundred fifty-two GPs completed the postal survey with a response rate of 59.9% (95%CI: 55.0%, 64.6%). The difference in response was 19.3% (95%CI: 12.2%, 26.3%). These results show that postal surveys with three reminders can have superior response rates compared with a telephone interview.
ISSN:0895-4356
1878-5921
DOI:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2005.10.009