Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28441932›Full record

ArticleBMC medical research methodology2017

An experimental comparison of web-push vs. paper-only survey procedures for conducting an in-depth health survey of military spouses.

Hope Seib McMaster, Cynthia A LeardMann, Steven Speigle, Don A Dillman, Millennium Cohort Family Study Team

Abstract readComparative Study
In one paragraph

Article in BMC medical research methodology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
35citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

35 citing papers in PubMed.

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  12. The Study of Adolescent Resilience (SOAR): a research protocol.Frontiers in child and adolescent psychiatry · 2024
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  17. HSPS-10-Short Version of the Highly Sensitive Person Scale for Students Aged 12-25 Years.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Hope Seib McMasterHenry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD, 20817, USA. hope.mcmaster@gmail.com.
Cynthia A LeardMannHenry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD, 20817, USA.
Steven SpeigleHenry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD, 20817, USA.
Don A DillmanDepartment of Sociology and the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, 99164, USA.
Millennium Cohort Family Study Team

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundPrevious research has found that a "web-push" approach to data collection, which involves contacting people by mail to request an Internet survey response while withholding a paper response option until later in the contact process, consistently achieves lower response rates than a "paper-only" approach, whereby all respondents are contacted and requested to respond by mail.

methodAn experiment was designed, as part of the Millennium Cohort Family Study, to compare response rates, sample representativeness, and cost between a web-push and a paper-only approach; each approach comprised 3 stages of mail contacts. The invited sample (n = 4,935) consisted of spouses married to U.S. Service members, who had been serving in the military between 2 and 5 years as of October, 2011.

resultsThe web-push methodology produced a significantly higher response rate, 32.8% compared to 27.8%. Each of the 3 stages of postal contact significantly contributed to response for both treatments with 87.1% of the web-push responses received over the Internet. The per-respondent cost of the paper-only treatment was almost 40% higher than the web-push treatment group. Analyses revealed no meaningfully significant differences between treatment groups in representation.

conclusionThese results provide evidence that a web-push methodology is more effective and less expensive than a paper-only approach among young military spouses, perhaps due to their heavy reliance on the internet, and we suggest that this approach may be more effective with the general population as they become more uniformly internet savvy.

Indexed as

InternetMilitary PersonnelAdolescentAdultCohort StudiesData CollectionFemaleHealth SurveysHumansMalePaperPostal ServiceSpousesYoung AdultEpidemiologyMethodsMilitaryPaperRecruitmentResearchStudy methodologySurveyWeb

Identifiers

PMID28441932
PMCPMC5405460

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.