ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners1997
Surveying general practitioners: does a low response rate matter?
Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 1997. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
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- Evaluation of the impact of two educational interventions on GP management of familial breast/ovarian cancer cases: a cluster randomised controlled trial.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2001Trial
- Sex and attitude: a randomized vignette study of the management of depression by general practitioners.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 1999Trial
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- Adaptation of French general practitioners for the management of nursing home patients during COVID-19 in 2020: a multilevel analysis.BMC primary care · 2024Article
- Devastating Wildfires and Mental Health: Major Depressive Disorder Prevalence and Associated Factors among Residents in Alberta and Nova Scotia, Canada.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Intraoperative application of regional cerebral oxygen saturation monitoring for geriatric patients in China: a survey.Frontiers in medicine · 2023Article
- Computer Vision Syndrome in Undergraduate and Medical Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Clinical ophthalmology (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2023Article
- Does the Conservative Non-pharmacological Management of Knee Osteoarthritis in Switzerland Reflect the Clinical Guidelines? A Survey Among General Practitioners, Rheumatologists, and Orthopaedic Surgeons.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciences · 2021Article
- Selection bias in general practice research: analysis in a cohort of pregnant Danish women.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2020Article
- Selective prevention of cardiometabolic diseases: activities and attitudes of general practitioners across Europe.European journal of public health · 2019Article
- Influenza vaccination 2014-2015: Results of a survey conducted among general practitioners in Italy.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2018Article
- Assessing the representativeness of physician and patient respondents to a primary care survey using administrative data.BMC family practice · 2018Article
- Article
- Prostate-specific antigen testing for prostate cancer screening: A national survey of Canadian primary care physicians' opinions and practices.Canadian Urological Association journal = Journal de l'Association des urologues du Canada · 2017Article
- Statistical Application and Cost Saving in a Dental Survey.Clinical medicine & research · 2017Article
- Fulfillment of administrative and professional obligations of hospitals and mission motivation of physicians.BMC health services research · 2017Article
- Do primary care professionals agree about progress with implementation of primary care teams: results from a cross sectional study.BMC family practice · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPrimary care has long been of interest to policy research. Recently, there is evidence to suggest that it is becoming more difficult to encourage GPs (general practitioners) to participate in surveys. As low response rates can introduce bias into survey results, it is important to study the effects of non-response.
aimTo assess the validity of a response rate of 44% obtained in a national postal study of GPs surveyed about their work with alcohol-misusing patients by assessing the extent of any non-response bias.
methodA telephone survey of 148 GPs who had not responded to repeated mailings of a postal questionnaire was undertaken. In addition to personal and practice structure characteristics, the GPs were asked three questions taken from the original questionnaire about their work with alcohol-misusing patients.
resultsOf the 148 GPs telephoned, 64 responded to the telephone questionnaire in full; all had previously failed to respond to the postal questionnaire. Younger GPs were more likely to respond to both the national postal and telephone surveys, but more so to the latter. Telephone responders were more likely to be GPs in a single-handed practice. The work of GPs with alcohol-misusing patients highlighted differences between the two response groups. Male telephone responders were found to be identifying a significantly higher average of alcohol misusers than male postal responders. Telephone responders were more likely to feel trained in treating alcohol misuse and to feel better supported to deal with this patient group.
conclusionSome significant differences were identified, indicating the presence of non-response bias. A low response rate need not affect the validity of the data collected, but it is still necessary to test for non-response effects and make corrections to the original data in order to maximize validity.
Indexed as
Identifiers
9101692PMC1312913What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.