Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

At a glance: The STEP trials

A round-up of the STEP phase 3 clinical trials evaluating semaglutide for weight loss in people with overweight or obesity.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
BMC Medical Research Methodology
Published in: BMC Medical Research Methodology 1/2015

Open Access 01-12-2015 | Research article

The effect of timing of incentive payments on response rates for cohort study telephone interviews in primary care setting with cost-minimization analysis, a randomized controlled trial

Authors: Weng-Yee Chin, Edmond PH Choi, Cindy LK Lam

Published in: BMC Medical Research Methodology | Issue 1/2015

Login to get access

Abstract

Background

The effect of timing of incentive payments on the response rate of telephone surveys is unknown. This study examined whether up-front or delayed incentive payments were associated with higher response rates for participation in a telephone interview administered longitudinal cohort study amongst primary care patients with lower urinary tract symptoms, and to compare the costs between the two timing methods.

Methods

This study was conducted as part of a naturalistic observation study on the health-related quality of life and health outcomes of Chinese primary care patients with lower urinary tract symptoms. The incentive payment was in the form of a supermarket gift voucher to the value of HD$50 (US$6.50) and could be used in lieu of cash at a major supermarket chain.720 subjects with lower urinary tract symptoms were randomly assigned into two groups. One group was offered an incentive of supermarket cash voucher at time of recruitment (‘up-front’ payment). The other group was told that the voucher would be sent to them after the complete of their 1-year follow-up telephone interview (‘delayed’ payment). Primary outcomes were the baseline and 1-year follow-up telephone survey response rates.

Results

There was no statistical difference in response rates at baseline (p-value = 0.938) or at the 1-year follow-up (p-value = 0.751) between groups. Cost per completed subject interviews for the up-front payment method was USD16.64, whilst cost for the delayed payment was USD 13.85.

Conclusions

It appears the timing of incentive payments does not affect response rates for telephone interview surveys conducted on primary care patients in Hong Kong at baseline or at 1-year follow-up. Delayed incentive payments can reduce the overall cost per successful case.

Trial registration

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02307929 Registered 28 August 2013
Literature
1.
Chin WY, Lam CL, Wong SY, Lo YY, Fong DY, Lam TP, et al. The epidemiology and natural history of depressive disorders in Hong Kong’s primary care. BMC Fam Pract. 2011;12(1):129.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
2.
Juniper EF, Guyatt GH. Development and testing of a new measure of health status for clinical trials in rhinoconjunctivitis. Clin Exp Allergy. 1991;21(1):77–83.CrossRefPubMed
3.
Larsen DL, Attkisson CC, Hargreaves WA, Nguyen TD. Assessment of client/patient satisfaction: development of a general scale. Eval Program Plann. 1979;2(3):197–207.CrossRefPubMed
4.
Brogger J, Bakke P, Eide GE, Gulsvik A. Comparison of telephone and postal survey modes on respiratory symptoms and risk factors. Am J Epidemiol. 2002;155(6):572–6.CrossRefPubMed
5.
Edwards P, Roberts I, Clarke M, DiGuiseppi C, Pratap S, Wentz R, et al. Increasing response rates to postal questionnaires: systematic review. BMJ. 2002;324(7347):1183.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
6.
Berry SH, Kanouse DE. Physician response to a mailed survey An experiment in timing of payment. Public Opin Q. 1987;51(1):102–14.CrossRef
7.
Church AH. Estimating the effect of incentives on mail survey response rates: A meta-analysis. Public Opin Q. 1993;57(1):62–79.CrossRef
8.
Singer E, Van Hoewyk J, Gebler N, Raghunathan T, McGonagle K. The effect of incentives on response rates in interviewer-mediated surveys. J Off Stat. 1999;15(2):217–30.
9.
10.
Homans GC. Social behavior: Its elementary forms. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World; 1961.
11.
Kanaan RA, Wessely SC, Armstrong D. Differential effects of pre and post-payment on neurologists’ response rates to a postal survey. BMC Neurol. 2010;10(1):100.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
12.
Burger JM, Sanchez J, Imberi JE, Grande LR. The norm of reciprocity as an internalized social norm: Returning favors even when no one finds out. Soc Influ. 2009;4(1):11–7.CrossRef
13.
Cialdini RB, Goldstein NJ. Social influence: Compliance and conformity. Annu Rev Psychol. 2004;55:591–621.CrossRefPubMed
14.
Cialdini RB. Influence: Science and practice. Boston: Allyn & Bacon; 2009.
15.
Adams JS. Inequity in social exchange. Adv Exp Soc Psychol. 1965;2:267–99.CrossRef
16.
Choi EP, Chin W-Y, Lam CL, Wan EY, Chan AK, Chan KH. Evaluation of the effectiveness of nurse-led continence care treatments for Chinese primary care patients with lower urinary tract symptoms. PLoS One. 2015;10(6):e0129875.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
17.
Choi EP, Lam CL, Chin W-Y. The health-related quality of life of Chinese patients with lower urinary tract symptoms in primary care. Qual Life Res. 2014;23(10):2723–33.CrossRefPubMed
18.
Choi EP, Lam CL, Chin WY. Mental health of Chinese primary care patients with lower urinary tract symptoms. Psychol Health Med. 2015:1–15. Epub ahead-of-print.
19.
Choi EP, Lam CL, Chin WY. Mental Health mediating the relationship between symptom severity and health‐related quality of life in patients with lower urinary tract symptoms. LUTS: Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms. 2015.
20.
Avery K, Donovan J, Peters TJ, Shaw C, Gotoh M, Abrams P. ICIQ: a brief and robust measure for evaluating the symptoms and impact of urinary incontinence. Neurourol Urodyn. 2004;23(4):322–30. doi:10.​1002/​nau.​20041.CrossRefPubMed
21.
Evans BR, Peterson BL, Demark-Wahnefried W. No difference in response rate to a mailed survey among prostate cancer survivors using conditional versus unconditional incentives. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2004;13(2):277–8.CrossRefPubMed
22.
Ashing-Giwa K, Ganz PA. Effect of timed incentives on subject participation in a study of long-term breast cancer survivors: are there ethnic differences? J Natl Med Assoc. 2000;92(11):528–32.PubMedPubMedCentral
23.
24.
Parsons T. Illness and the role of the physician: A sociological perspective. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 1951;21(3):452–60.CrossRefPubMed
25.
Corbie-Smith G, Thomas SB, Williams MV, Moody-Ayers S. Attitudes and beliefs of African Americans toward participation in medical research. J Gen Intern Med. 1999;14(9):537–46.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
26.
Schweitzer M, Asch DA. Timing payments to subjects of mail surveys: cost-effectiveness and bias. J Clin Epidemiol. 1995;48(11):1325–9.CrossRefPubMed
Metadata
Title
The effect of timing of incentive payments on response rates for cohort study telephone interviews in primary care setting with cost-minimization analysis, a randomized controlled trial
Authors
Weng-Yee Chin
Edmond PH Choi
Cindy LK Lam
Publication date
01-12-2015
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Medical Research Methodology / Issue 1/2015
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2288
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-015-0073-3

Other articles of this Issue 1/2015

BMC Medical Research Methodology 1/2015 Go to the issue

Research article

Classification and prevalence of spin in abstracts of non-randomized studies evaluating an intervention

Research Article

A measure of the impact of CV incompleteness on prediction error estimation with application to PCA and normalization

Research Article

Prostate cancer: net survival and cause-specific survival rates after multiple imputation

Research article

Predictive modeling in pediatric traumatic brain injury using machine learning

Research article

Statistical power as a function of Cronbach alpha of instrument questionnaire items

Correspondence

Emergent approaches to the meta-analysis of multiple heterogeneous complex interventions