Does an offer for a free on-line continuing medical education (CME) activity increase physician survey response rate? A randomized trial

• Main Authors: Viera Anthony J, Edwards Teresa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2012-03-01
• Series: BMC Research Notes
• Online Access: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/5/129

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>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% (<it>p </it>< 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>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.</p>