title: Does an offer for a free on-line continuing medical education (CME) activity increase physician survey response rate? A randomized trial.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Achieving a high response rate in a physician survey is challenging. Monetary incentives increase response rates but obviously add cost to a survey project. We wondered whether an offer of a free continuing medical education (CME) activity would be effective in improving survey response rate.
  
  
  RESULTS
  As part of a survey of a national sample of physicians, we randomized half to an offer for a free on-line CME activity upon completion of a web-based survey and the other half to no such offer. We compared response rates between the groups. A total of 1214 out of 8477 potentially eligible physicians responded to our survey, for an overall response rate of 14.3%. The response rate among the control group (no offer of CME credit) was 16.6%, while among those offered the CME opportunity, the response rate was 12.0% (p < 0.0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  An offer for a free on-line CME activity did not improve physician survey response rate. On the contrary, the offer for a free CME activity actually appeared to worsen the response rate.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. anthony_viera@med.unc.edu
authors.forename: Anthony J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Viera
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Edwards
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing / Q000191:economics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010816:Physician Incentive Plans / Q000191:economics; D010820:Physicians / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology*