Open AccessCost‐effectiveness of follow‐up contact for a postal survey: a randomised controlled trial
Author(s) -
Breen Courtney L.,
Shakeshaft Anthony P.,
Doran Christopher M.,
SansonFisher Rob W.,
Mattick Richard P.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of public health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.946
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1753-6405
pISSN - 1326-0200
DOI - 10.1111/j.1753-6405.2010.00598.x
Subject(s) - phone , phone call , medicine , marginal cost , philosophy , linguistics , economics , microeconomics
Objective:This study examines the effectiveness and costs of follow‐up phone calls in improving response rates to a community survey.Methods:Non‐responders to a postal survey were randomly allocated to receive a phone call or no phone call. The resources used for the development and implementation of the survey were documented. The response rates and cost per level of follow‐up contact examined.Results:Follow‐up phone calls led to a statistical significant increase in the number of responses to a community‐wide survey, relative to no phone call. This relative increase in responses (n=62 for the follow‐up phone call group versus n=1 for controls), did not increase the absolute survey response rate sufficiently (from 38.5% for two mailed surveys to 39.8% for two mailed surveys plus a phone call) to justify the phone call costs. Scenario analyses show increasing the initial response rate by 10% and conducting a second mailed survey achieves greater marginal cost savings than increasing the response rate to the second mailout or the follow‐up phone calls.Conclusions:These results suggest a follow‐up phone call was not cost effective. Survey research ought to primarily focus on obtaining optimal initial response rates by using strategies identified in a Cochrane meta‐analytic review.