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ID 32951
FullText URL
Author
Milgrom, Peter
Ishihara, Chikako
Shimono, Tsutomu
Abstract

Background: This study assessed the application of the Total Design Method (TDM) in a mail survey of Japanese dentists. The TDM was chosen because survey response rates in Japan are unacceptably low and the TDM had previously been used in a general population survey.
Methods: Four hundred and seventy eight dentist members of the Okayama Medical and Dental Practitioner's Association were surveyed. The nine-page, 27-item questionnaire covered dentist job satisfaction, physical practice, and dentist and patient characteristics. Respondents to the first mailing or the one-week follow-up postcard were defined as early responders; others who responded were late responders. Responder bias was assessed by examining age, gender and training.
Results: The overall response rate was 46.7% (223/478). The response rates by follow-up mailing were, 18% after the first mailing, 35.4% after the follow-up postcard, 42.3% after the second mailing, and 46.7% after the third mailing. Respondents did not differ from non-respondents in age or gender, nor were there differences between early and late responders.
Conclusion: The application of TDM in this survey of Japanese dentists produced lower rates of response than expected from previous Japanese and US studies.

Note
Digital Object Identifer:10.1186/1471-2288-5-27
Published with permission from the copyright holder. This is the institute's copy, as published in BMC Medical Research Methodology 23 August 2005, 5:27.
Publisher URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-5-27
© 2005 Nakai et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Published Date
2005-8-23
Publication Title
BMC Medical Research Methodology
Volume
volume5
Publisher
BioMed Central
NCID
AA12035234
Content Type
Journal Article
language
English
Copyright Holders
Nakai et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
File Version
publisher
Refereed
True
DOI
PubMed ID
Submission Path
dentistry_general/1