Pham, T;
Abel, G;
Gomez-Cano, M;
Lyratzopoulos, G;
(2019)
Predictors of postal or online response mode and associations with patient experience and satisfaction in the English Cancer Patient Experience Survey.
Journal of Medical Internet Research
, 21
(5)
, Article e11855. 10.2196/11855.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Patient experience surveys are important tools for improving the quality of cancer services but the representativeness of responders is a concern. Increasingly, patient surveys which traditionally used postal questionnaires are incorporating an online response option. However, the characteristics and experience ratings of online responders are poorly understood. OBJECTIVES: To examine predictors of postal or online response mode; and associations with patient experience in the (English) Cancer Patient Experience Survey. METHODS: We analysed data from 71,186 patients with cancer recently treated in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals who responded to the Cancer Patient Experience Survey 2015. Using logistic regression, we explored patient characteristics associated with greater probability of online response; and whether, after adjustment for patient characteristics, online response was associated with more or less critical evaluation of cancer care compared with postal response. RESULTS: 4,635 (7%) of the survey participants responded online. In adjusted analyses, men (OR women vs men 0.50; 95% CI 0.46-0.54), younger (OR < 55 vs 65-74 years old 3.49; 3.21-3.80), least deprived (OR most vs least deprived quintile 0.57; 0.51-0.64), and ethnic minority (OR non-white vs white ethnicity 1.37; 1.24-1.51) patients were more likely to respond online. Compared with postal responders, after adjustment for patient characteristics, online responders had a higher likelihood of reporting an overall satisfied experience of care (OR 1.24; 1.16-1.32). For 34/49 other items, online responders more frequently reported a less than positive experience of care (8 reached statistical significance), and the associations were positive for the remaining 15/49 items (2 reached statistical significance). CONCLUSIONS: In the context of a national survey of patients living with cancer, online and postal responders tend to differ in their characteristics and rating of satisfaction; associations between online response and reported experience were generally small and mostly non-significant, but with a tendency towards less than positive ratings, though not consistently. Whether the observed associations between response mode and reported experience were causal needs to be examined using experimental survey designs.
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