title: An example of maximizing survey return rates. Methodological issues for health professionals.
abstract: Obtaining a high response rate in survey research can bolster statistical power, reduce sampling error, and enhance the generalizability of the results to the population surveyed. We describe a mail survey designed to achieve a high return rate of completed questionnaires from members of the American Psychological Association who were engaged in clinical practice. We adapted the Total Design Method for survey research and were able to achieve a high response rate (68%) among health professionals. This was not an experiment in which we assessed the best method to increase survey response rates, hence we cannot empirically evaluate how each of the steps influenced our overall response rate. Future research is needed to identify the relative effectiveness of each of these principles in enhancing survey response rates. Research is also needed to distinguish general principles that apply across populations from those that must be tailored to specific subpopulations.
authors.affiliation: Stanford University, USA. cgore@mcw.edu
authors.forename: Cheryl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gore-Felton
authors.forename: Cheryl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Koopman
authors.forename: Edwin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bridges
authors.forename: Carl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Thoresen
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Spiegel
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011177:Postal Service; D012107:Research Design; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires