Maximising response rates in a survey of general practitioners. Lessons from a Victorian survey on sexually transmissible diseases.
OBJECTIVE
To describe factors that influence participation by general practitioners (GPs) in survey research, and in particular to examine the effectiveness of telephone prompts made by a GP researcher compared with non-medical researchers in a survey of GPs on sexually transmissible diseases (STDs).


METHODS
A questionnaire survey of knowledge, attitudes, behaviour and practice (KABP) in relation to STDs was distributed to 520 Victorian GPs randomly selected from the Australian Medical Publishing Company's (AMPCo) database of Australian medical practitioners.


METHODS
Number of GPs able to be contacted by telephone and cumulative and overall response rates to the questionnaire.


RESULTS
The overall response rate was 85%. Although the GP researcher was able to make contact by telephone in a higher proportion of cases (80%) than the non-GP researchers combined (69%, p < 0.01) response rates were not significantly different (83% versus 87%).


CONCLUSIONS
Telephone prompts to encourage GP response in survey research need not be made by a medical practitioner. Other important factors in relation to response rate that should be considered by researchers are GP involvement in the developing and piloting of the survey instrument, incentives and provision of detailed feedback of the results of the survey.
Temple-Smith
M
M
Centre for the Study of Sexually Transmissible Disease, La Trobe University.
Mulvey
G
G
Doyle
W
W
D000328:Adult; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D010865:Pilot Projects; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014739:Victoria