Improving response rates using a monetary incentive for patient completion of questionnaires: an observational study

Stephen D. Brealey; Christine Atwell; Stirling Bryan; Simon Coulton; Helen Cox; Ben Cross; Fiona Fylan; Andrew Garratt; Fiona J. Gilbert; Maureen G. C. Gillan; Maggie Hendry; Kerenza Hood; Helen Houston; David King; Veronica Morton; Jo Orchard; Michael Robling; Ian T. Russell; David Torgerson; Valerie Wadsworth; Clare Wilkinson

doi:10.1186/1471-2288-7-12

Improving response rates using a monetary incentive for patient completion of questionnaires: an observational study

Stephen D. Brealey, Christine Atwell, Stirling Bryan, Simon Coulton, Helen Cox, Ben Cross, Fiona Fylan, Andrew Garratt, Fiona J. Gilbert, Maureen G. C. Gillan, Maggie Hendry, Kerenza Hood, Helen Houston, David King, Veronica Morton, Jo Orchard, Michael Robling, Ian T. Russell, David Torgerson, Valerie WadsworthClare Wilkinson

Health Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Background: Poor response rates to postal questionnaires can introduce bias and reduce the statistical power of a study. To improve response rates in our trial in primary care we tested the effect of introducing an unconditional direct payment of 5 pound for the completion of postal questionnaires.

Methods: We recruited patients in general practice with knee problems from sites across the United Kingdom. An evidence-based strategy was used to follow-up patients at twelve months with postal questionnaires. This included an unconditional direct payment of 5 pound to patients for the completion and return of questionnaires. The first 105 patients did not receive the 5 pound incentive, but the subsequent 442 patients did. We used logistic regression to analyse the effect of introducing a monetary incentive to increase the response to postal questionnaires.

Results: The response rate following reminders for the historical controls was 78.1% ( 82 of 105) compared with 88.0% ( 389 of 442) for those patients who received the 5 pound payment (diff = 9.9%, 95% CI 2.3% to 19.1%). Direct payments significantly increased the odds of response ( adjusted odds ratio = 2.2, 95% CI 1.2 to 4.0, P = 0.009) with only 12 of 442 patients declining the payment. The incentive did not save costs to the trial - the extra cost per additional respondent was almost 50 pound.

Conclusion: The direct payment of 5 pound significantly increased the completion of postal questionnaires at negligible increase in cost for an adequately powered study.

Original language	English
Article number	12
Pages (from-to)	1-5
Number of pages	5
Journal	BMC Medical Research Methodology
Volume	7
Issue number	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-7-12
Publication status	Published - 27 Feb 2007

Bibliographical note

© 2007 Brealey et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords

RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED-TRIALS
PRIMARY-CARE

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10.1186/1471-2288-7-12

BMCimprovingresponse3.pdf

Cite this

Brealey, S. D., Atwell, C., Bryan, S., Coulton, S., Cox, H., Cross, B., Fylan, F., Garratt, A., Gilbert, F. J., Gillan, M. G. C., Hendry, M., Hood, K., Houston, H., King, D., Morton, V., Orchard, J., Robling, M., Russell, I. T., Torgerson, D., ... Wilkinson, C. (2007). Improving response rates using a monetary incentive for patient completion of questionnaires: an observational study. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 7(12), 1-5. Article 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-7-12

@article{c1233f424c5b46c693457be54475b371,

title = "Improving response rates using a monetary incentive for patient completion of questionnaires: an observational study",

abstract = "Background: Poor response rates to postal questionnaires can introduce bias and reduce the statistical power of a study. To improve response rates in our trial in primary care we tested the effect of introducing an unconditional direct payment of 5 pound for the completion of postal questionnaires.Methods: We recruited patients in general practice with knee problems from sites across the United Kingdom. An evidence-based strategy was used to follow-up patients at twelve months with postal questionnaires. This included an unconditional direct payment of 5 pound to patients for the completion and return of questionnaires. The first 105 patients did not receive the 5 pound incentive, but the subsequent 442 patients did. We used logistic regression to analyse the effect of introducing a monetary incentive to increase the response to postal questionnaires.Results: The response rate following reminders for the historical controls was 78.1% ( 82 of 105) compared with 88.0% ( 389 of 442) for those patients who received the 5 pound payment (diff = 9.9%, 95% CI 2.3% to 19.1%). Direct payments significantly increased the odds of response ( adjusted odds ratio = 2.2, 95% CI 1.2 to 4.0, P = 0.009) with only 12 of 442 patients declining the payment. The incentive did not save costs to the trial - the extra cost per additional respondent was almost 50 pound.Conclusion: The direct payment of 5 pound significantly increased the completion of postal questionnaires at negligible increase in cost for an adequately powered study.",

keywords = "RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED-TRIALS, PRIMARY-CARE",

author = "Brealey, {Stephen D.} and Christine Atwell and Stirling Bryan and Simon Coulton and Helen Cox and Ben Cross and Fiona Fylan and Andrew Garratt and Gilbert, {Fiona J.} and Gillan, {Maureen G. C.} and Maggie Hendry and Kerenza Hood and Helen Houston and David King and Veronica Morton and Jo Orchard and Michael Robling and Russell, {Ian T.} and David Torgerson and Valerie Wadsworth and Clare Wilkinson",

note = "{\textcopyright} 2007 Brealey et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.",

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Brealey, SD, Atwell, C, Bryan, S, Coulton, S, Cox, H , Cross, B, Fylan, F, Garratt, A, Gilbert, FJ, Gillan, MGC, Hendry, M, Hood, K, Houston, H, King, D, Morton, V, Orchard, J, Robling, M, Russell, IT, Torgerson, D, Wadsworth, V & Wilkinson, C 2007, 'Improving response rates using a monetary incentive for patient completion of questionnaires: an observational study', BMC Medical Research Methodology, vol. 7, no. 12, 12, pp. 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-7-12

TY - JOUR

T1 - Improving response rates using a monetary incentive for patient completion of questionnaires: an observational study

AU - Brealey, Stephen D.

AU - Atwell, Christine

AU - Bryan, Stirling

AU - Coulton, Simon

AU - Cox, Helen

AU - Cross, Ben

AU - Fylan, Fiona

AU - Garratt, Andrew

AU - Gilbert, Fiona J.

AU - Gillan, Maureen G. C.

AU - Hendry, Maggie

AU - Hood, Kerenza

AU - Houston, Helen

AU - King, David

AU - Morton, Veronica

AU - Orchard, Jo

AU - Robling, Michael

AU - Russell, Ian T.

AU - Torgerson, David

AU - Wadsworth, Valerie

AU - Wilkinson, Clare

N1 - © 2007 Brealey et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

PY - 2007/2/27

Y1 - 2007/2/27

N2 - Background: Poor response rates to postal questionnaires can introduce bias and reduce the statistical power of a study. To improve response rates in our trial in primary care we tested the effect of introducing an unconditional direct payment of 5 pound for the completion of postal questionnaires.Methods: We recruited patients in general practice with knee problems from sites across the United Kingdom. An evidence-based strategy was used to follow-up patients at twelve months with postal questionnaires. This included an unconditional direct payment of 5 pound to patients for the completion and return of questionnaires. The first 105 patients did not receive the 5 pound incentive, but the subsequent 442 patients did. We used logistic regression to analyse the effect of introducing a monetary incentive to increase the response to postal questionnaires.Results: The response rate following reminders for the historical controls was 78.1% ( 82 of 105) compared with 88.0% ( 389 of 442) for those patients who received the 5 pound payment (diff = 9.9%, 95% CI 2.3% to 19.1%). Direct payments significantly increased the odds of response ( adjusted odds ratio = 2.2, 95% CI 1.2 to 4.0, P = 0.009) with only 12 of 442 patients declining the payment. The incentive did not save costs to the trial - the extra cost per additional respondent was almost 50 pound.Conclusion: The direct payment of 5 pound significantly increased the completion of postal questionnaires at negligible increase in cost for an adequately powered study.

AB - Background: Poor response rates to postal questionnaires can introduce bias and reduce the statistical power of a study. To improve response rates in our trial in primary care we tested the effect of introducing an unconditional direct payment of 5 pound for the completion of postal questionnaires.Methods: We recruited patients in general practice with knee problems from sites across the United Kingdom. An evidence-based strategy was used to follow-up patients at twelve months with postal questionnaires. This included an unconditional direct payment of 5 pound to patients for the completion and return of questionnaires. The first 105 patients did not receive the 5 pound incentive, but the subsequent 442 patients did. We used logistic regression to analyse the effect of introducing a monetary incentive to increase the response to postal questionnaires.Results: The response rate following reminders for the historical controls was 78.1% ( 82 of 105) compared with 88.0% ( 389 of 442) for those patients who received the 5 pound payment (diff = 9.9%, 95% CI 2.3% to 19.1%). Direct payments significantly increased the odds of response ( adjusted odds ratio = 2.2, 95% CI 1.2 to 4.0, P = 0.009) with only 12 of 442 patients declining the payment. The incentive did not save costs to the trial - the extra cost per additional respondent was almost 50 pound.Conclusion: The direct payment of 5 pound significantly increased the completion of postal questionnaires at negligible increase in cost for an adequately powered study.

KW - RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED-TRIALS

KW - PRIMARY-CARE

U2 - 10.1186/1471-2288-7-12

DO - 10.1186/1471-2288-7-12

M3 - Article

SN - 1471-2288

VL - 7

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EP - 5

JO - BMC Medical Research Methodology

JF - BMC Medical Research Methodology

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M1 - 12

ER -