BackgroundSurvey research in healthcare is an important tool to collect information about healthcare delivery, service use and overall issues relating to quality of care. Unfortunately, physicians are often a group with low survey response rates and little research has looked at response rates among physician specialists. For these reasons, the purpose of this project was to explore survey response rates among physician specialists in a large metropolitan Canadian city.MethodsAs part of a larger project to look at physician payment plans, an online survey about medical billing practices was distributed to 904 physicians from various medical specialties. The primary method for physicians to complete the survey was via the Internet using a well-known and established survey company (www.surveymonkey.com). Multiple methods were used to encourage survey response such as individual personalized email invitations, multiple reminders, and a draw for three gift certificate prizes were used to increase response rate. Descriptive statistics were used to assess response rates and reasons for non-response.ResultsOverall survey response rate was 35.0%. Response rates varied by specialty: Neurology/neurosurgery (46.6%); internal medicine (42.9%); general surgery (29.6%); pediatrics (29.2%); and psychiatry (27.1%). Non-respondents listed lack of time/survey burden as the main reason for not responding to our survey.ConclusionsOur survey results provide a look into the challenges of collecting healthcare research where response rates to surveys are often low. The findings presented here should help researchers in planning future survey based studies. Findings from this study and others suggest smaller monetary incentives for each individual may be a more appropriate way to increase response rates.

The incidence of PLA is increasing and is associated with significant mortality that is attributable to several modifiable risk factors.

Benchmark complication rates for radical rectal cancer surgery were obtained for use in sample size calculations in future studies and for quality control purposes. Postoperative death rates showed improvement in recent years.

Appendicitis is a global disease. The incidence of appendicitis is stable in most Western countries. Data from newly industrialized countries is sparse, but suggests that appendicitis is rising rapidly.