%0 Journal Article
%T Getting physicians to open the survey: little evidence that an envelope teaser increases response rates
%A Jeanette Y Ziegenfuss
%A Kelly Burmeister
%A Katherine M James
%A Lindsey Haas
%A Jon C Tilburt
%A Timothy J Beebe
%J BMC Medical Research Methodology
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2288-12-41
%X In the second mailing of a survey assessing physicians' moral beliefs and views on controversial health care topics, initial nonrespondents were randomly assigned to receive a survey in an envelope with a colored "$25 incentive" sticker (teaser group) or an envelope without a sticker (control group). Response rates were compared between the teaser and control groups overall and by age, gender, region of the United States, specialty and years in practice. Nonresponse bias was assessed by comparing the demographic composition of the respondents to the nonrespondents in the experimental and control condition.No significant differences in response rates were observed between the experimental and control conditions overall (p = 0.38) or after stratifying by age, gender, region, or practice type. Within the teaser condition, there was some variation in response rate by years since graduation. There was no independent effect of the teaser on response when simultaneously controlling for demographic characteristics (OR = 0.875, p = 0.4112).Neither response rates nor nonresponse bias were impacted by the use of an envelope teaser in a survey of physicians in the United States.Health services researchers are dependent on physicians' participation in surveys in order to assess provider attitudes, beliefs and self-reported behaviors such as guideline adherence. There is some evidence that physician response rates have been falling in more recent years [1,2]. While low response rates are known to reduce statistical power and result in higher costs per completed survey, the impact of low response rates on nonresponse bias may not be as strong as previously thought [3]. Nevertheless, exploring methods to increase response rates in surveys of physicians is an important area of study, one that was recently called for in a review of the physician response literature by VanGeest et al. [4] In November of 2010, the National Cancer Institute convened a Provider Survey Methods Workshop wh
%K Survey methods
%K Response rates
%K Physician surveys
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/12/41