Multiple methods for multiple specialties
Editor’s note: Andrea Michaud is senior project manager at Itracks, a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based research firm.
Increasing numbers of pharmaceutical companies are turning to market research to gain insight on industry trends, develop brand strategies, evaluate marketing materials and advertising and help position new products prior to launch. At the same time, many research companies are taking their research online for projects targeting physicians, specialists and surgeons to obtain the supporting data that is integral for decision-making in these areas.
The field time required to conduct surveys with health care professionals is often much longer than studies conducted with consumers or ailment sufferers. Patient studies are generally completed in a matter of days, where physician studies often take weeks, depending on the methodology and sampling size. Costs associated with physician studies can be significantly greater due to survey complexity, time and effort required in recruiting medical professionals, as well as the cost of honorariums. The ability to target health care specialties adds to the time often needed for recruiting.
In addition, health care professionals are difficult to target and projects have low response rates, which can threaten the validity of survey data. The response rates for surgeons are especially low. Using an online survey combined with multiple-mode recruitment methods can boost response rates.
Creative approaches
Because physicians are so busy and so difficult to reach, creative approaches are required to gain interest and achieve the desired response rates.
Over the past year, our firm has worked with market research firms on a variety of online survey projects targeting a range of physicians. Online surveys can provide the flexibility to handle even the most complex survey, which often is required to develop an effective medical market study. Complicated questionnaire formats include piping, rating, ranking and randomization of attributes.
Conjoint surveys, including adaptive conjoint or discrete choice models, are frequently used when targeting physicians to obtain information on various trade-offs by asking respondents to rank, rate or choose among a series of scenarios or profiles with different features. One of the things this allows the researcher to identify is what factors ultimately influence physicians’ prescribing decisions. The pattern of responses can provide benefit measures for treatment features that have little or no direct effect on efficacy. It can also provide key information for decision makers on particular treatment attribute levels to help predict product adoption and design clinical trials.
Multiple modes
To minimize expenses and boost participation statistics, multiple modes of data collection have been employed when targeting physicians. These include phone-to-Web surveys, fax-to-Web surveys and even a detailed process using faxing, phone screening, data entry and finishing with an online survey. These hybrid methods have been effective in reaching targeted specialties while obtaining quality data and meeting project objectives. The convenience of Web data collection teamed with traditional methods boosts response rates and allows shorter field times for studies. Mail, phone or Internet surveys alone often cannot reach the target respondents and have shown extremely poor response rates. Providing respondents with the option to complete the survey at their convenience increases the likelihood of cooperation. Internet access is widely available throughout hospital wards, and in physician and surgeon offices, allowing respondents to access the survey when they choose, without the inconvenience of a paper survey and return mailing, or having to spend time on the phone for a CATI study.
Phone-to-Web recruits
In phone-to-Web projects, respondents are contacted by phone, qualified through a series of simple screening questions and then given a URL to complete the survey online. E-mails can be sent as a follow up to confirm the survey link. The physician can complete the online portion of the study at their convenience. Typically it would be difficult to complete an entire CATI survey with physicians based on their schedules, and using a combination of telephone and online methods increases participation levels. This approach ensures the proper respondent is participating in the study while providing a respondent-friendly method for supplying information. Reminder calls are usually conducted for physicians who have not yet completed the study and occasionally an additional incentive is offered near the end of a project to get the last few completes. As with all online surveys, privacy and confidentiality are assured through the use of unique URL login formats or individual passwords. This allows physicians to come back to the survey if they are unexpectedly called away.
Fax-to-Web recruits
Fax broadcasts are also effective in targeting physicians. Using client-supplied lists, large numbers of faxes can be sent simultaneously for a low cost. The faxed document invites physicians to complete the online survey to receive an honorarium. Again, respondents have the convenience of completing the study when time permits. Overall the number of physicians that can be contacted at once is significantly increased, eliminating the labor costs of initiating contact by phone. Follow-up calls are beneficial to confirm receipt of the fax and to remind physicians to complete the study. This type of study typically requires a longer field time than a phone-to-Web recruit; however, it can be more effective than trying to reach specialists for a strictly telephone survey.
Combining phone, fax, and data entry with an online survey
Another, more involved, process combines a fax and phone recruit, followed by an online survey. Physicians are faxed an invitation to participate in the online study for a specific honorarium. The fax details the length of time involved to complete the study and asks the respondent to contact a CATI center where they respond to the initial screening questions. Once qualified, they can choose to receive the patient case forms for them to complete, which ask the physicians to provide information about specific patients, length of treatment, past and current medications, and other relevant information. Although this is a long and detailed process, overall it has proven effective for specific projects.
Sourcing sample
To supplement phone or fax recruits, the data collector can team with specialty panels for physicians and allied health care professionals in the U.S., Canada and internationally. Panel members are pre-screened, have opted-in to participate in online surveys and are genuinely interested in sharing their professional and clinical opinions. An array of specialties, ranging from nurses to primary care physicians to surgeons, is available. Respondents can be targeted geographically or screened for minimum years in practice, percentage of hours in a specific setting, or to ensure they are board-certified or eligible. The panel provider will handle honorarium payments and has established specific amounts based on each specialty. Surveys can also be conducted in multiple languages, including French, Italian and Japanese and some panel companies will even handle survey translations.
For clients with targeted lists of physicians, panel companies can match the list against their panel using 10- or 11-digit medical education numbers. In this way the sampling can be managed by the panel provider. Obviously larger lists will result in a greater number of matches and increase the number of completes that can be obtained. For the average list match, the panel will match between 10 percent and 15 percent of physicians, with approximately 12 percent being the norm. The total number of matches is influenced by the quality and accuracy of the client list. By using a larger list or the entire universe, evidently the match rate is much higher.
Multiple methods
Pharmaceutical research with physicians is crucial for decision-making on new or existing health care interventions, and clients are more interested in learning about everyday concerns and practices of physicians. Multiple data collection methods, including phone-to-Web and fax-to-Web, increase overall response rates while meeting project deadlines. Despite the projects sometimes fielding longer than the average patient study, overall costs are often reduced.
By incorporating online methodologies, market researchers have the ability to target a wide variety of physicians and health care specialists while providing respondents with the flexibility of completing surveys at their convenience. In boosting response rates, researchers can be confident that survey data is never compromised and the overall research objectives of the client are met.