Impact of Instrument, Design, and Mode Changes in a Physician Survey

• Activity Number: 327
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 6, 2003 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Sara L. Thran*+
• Companies: American Medical Association
• Keywords: mode effects ; incentives ; nonresponse

Abstract

In 2000, the American Medical Association redesigned its survey for collecting socioeconomic information from physicians. For nearly 20 years, the AMA had conducted a 25-minute telephone interview of nonfederal patient care physicians. In 1998 and 1999, it became increasingly difficult to conduct this survey and the survey response rate dropped considerably. The revised survey is based upon the earlier survey but is shorter, primarily maintaining questions that physicians can easily answer without referring to their records. The survey is mixed mode--beginning as a mail survey, with telephone interviews attempted with all physicians who do not respond to the mail survey. Respondents are offered an incentive for completing the survey. Proxy respondents are not allowed in the redesigned survey, although they had been previously used. The Gallup Organization collected the data for the 2001 survey. In this paper, we will assess the effectiveness of modifications that were made to the previous survey processs. We will compare the mail and telephone respondent characteristics and responses to key survey items by mail versus telephone.