Engelsk titel: Efforts to increase the response to mailed questionnaires
Läs online
Författare:
Finsen, Vilhjalmur
Email: vilh.finsen@ntnu.no
Språk: Dan
Antal referenser: 6
Dokumenttyp:
Artikel
UI-nummer: 11011456
Sammanfattning
INTRODUCTION: Great effort should be made to ensure that as many subjects as possible reply when using mailed questionnaires. It has been shown that including a monetary reward or sending a short form increases the number of replies. The purpose of the study was to determine whether this is true also in Scandinavia. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Questionnaires were sent to 200 women and 200 men in each age decade of 20-29 years and older. Totally, 2,000 long and 800 short questionnaires were mailed - 200 letters included 50 NOK (Norwegian kroner), 500 letters included 10 NOK, and 1,000 letters included 1 NOK. At the time of mailing 5 NOK was worth approximately 1 USD. The remainder served as controls. Block randomization ensured an even distribution of the various rewards and long and short forms in each age decade and sex. RESULTS: After 11 weeks 59% had returned the short form and 54% the long form (p = 0.03). Replies were received from 54% of the control subjects, from 53% of subjects who had received 1 NOK, from 58% of subjects who had received 10 NOK, and from 74% of subjects who had received 50 NOK (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: A short form is returned statistically significantly more often than a long form, but the difference is only moderate. A monetary reward increases the rate of reply considerably also in Scandinavia. The sum sent must be fairly high to have effect.