Allowing Physicians to Choose the Value of Compensation for Participation in a Web-Based Survey: Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

BackgroundSurvey response rates among physicians are declining, and determining an appropriate level of compensation to motivate participation poses a major challenge.ObjectiveTo estimate the effect of permitting intensive care physicians to select their preferred level of compensation for completing a short Web-based survey on physician (1) response rate, (2) survey completion rate, (3) time to response, and (4) time spent completing the survey.MethodsA total of 1850 US intensivists from an existing database were randomized to receive a survey invitation email with or without an Amazon.com incentive available to the first 100 respondents. The incentive could be instantly redeemed for an amount chosen by the respondent, up to a maximum of US $50.ResultsThe overall response rate was 35.90% (630/1755). Among the 35.4% (111/314) of eligible participants choosing the incentive, 80.2% (89/111) selected the maximum value. Among intensivists offered an incentive, the response was 6.0% higher (95% CI 1.5-10.5, P=.01), survey completion was marginally greater (807/859, 94.0% vs 892/991, 90.0%; P=.06), and the median number of days to survey response was shorter (0.8, interquartile range [IQR] 0.2-14.4 vs 6.6, IQR 0.3-22.3; P=.001), with no difference in time spent completing the survey.ConclusionsPermitting intensive care physicians to determine compensation level for completing a short Web-based survey modestly increased response rate and substantially decreased response time without decreasing the time spent on survey completion.

Biomedical authors’ awareness of publication ethics: an international survey

“…It is also possible that institutional spam filters prevented our emails from reaching respondents. However, physician responses to web surveys are known to be declining and the response rate to our survey is similar to that reported in a large survey of doctors 20 and higher than that of a large survey of international authors on attitudes to peer review in 2009. 21 Additionally, the response rate to this survey is in the same range as other surveys on this sensitive topic, which have ranged from 27% to 33%.…”

To tell or not to tell: attitudes of transplant surgeons and transplant nephrologists regarding the disclosure of recipient information to living kidney donors

“…found that the mean response to electronic surveys was only 39.6% (standard deviation 19.6%) . Even small incentives have been shown to improve the response rate . Despite a limited budget that precluded us from offering an incentive, we attempted to improve the response rate using mixed methods (three electronic requests and one postal request), which has been shown to help .…”

“…Survey response rate has been declining over the past 20 yr regardless of mode of administration (postal surveys, phone surveys, and email surveys) (25,26 (26). Even small incentives have been shown to improve the response rate (27)(28)(29). Despite a limited budget that precluded us from offering an incentive, we attempted to improve the response rate using mixed methods (three electronic requests and one postal request), which has been shown to help (27,28).…”

The Effect of Varying Incentive Amounts on Physician Survey Response

“…amounts (US$2-$10; Deehan, Templeton, Taylor, Drummond, & Strang, 1997;Halpern, Ubel, Berlin, & Asch, 2002) and between larger incentives (US$20-$50; Keating, Zaslavsky, Goldstein, West, & Ayanian, 2008;McLeod et al, 2013), Turnbull, O'Connor, Lau, Halpern, and Needham (2015) let physicians choose their incentive amount up to US$50 and found that only one third chose any incentive, but those who did take it generally took the maximum amount.…”

“…However, findings regarding the effect of incentives on early response are sparse and mixed. In a randomized control trial, Turnbull et al (2015) found that physicians offered an Amazon gift card up to US$50 responded to a short web survey sooner than physicians not offered an incentive. Similarly, Keating, Zaslavsky, Goldstein, West, and Ayanian (2008) found a higher percentage of physicians responded to the first mailing in the US$50 incentive condition compared to the US$20 incentive.…”