Work

The Impact of Varying Incentives on Physician Survey Response Rates: An experiment in the context of COVID-19

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: Since 2018, our research team has fielded national, probability surveys of internal medicine physicians. We expected our usually high response rates to fall in the 2021 iteration of the survey due to challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic and our inability to offer all participants a $50 upfront incentive as we had previously. To understand the independent impacts of the lower incentive and surveying physicians in the context of the pandemic, we fielded an experiment varying the incentive amount physicians were offered. Our results suggest that while higher incentives still lead to higher response rates during COVID-19, the higher incentive did not achieve comparable pre-COVID response rates. We conclude with additional data on the impact of the incentives on survey cost, number of reminders needed, and the mode in which respondents chose to complete the survey.

Source: Survey Practice

DOI: 10.29115/sp-2022-0012

Authors: William J. Young, Michelle T. Bover Manderski, Binu Singh, Cristine D. Delnevo

Institution: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Language: English

Topic: Survey Methodology and Nonresponse

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: diamond

Funder: National Cancer Institute