Assessing the representativeness of physician and patient respondents to a primary care survey using administrative data

Abstract

BackgroundQUALICOPC is an international survey of primary care performance. QUALICOPC data have been used in several studies, yet the representativeness of the Canadian QUALICOPC survey is unknown, potentially limiting the generalizability of findings. This study examined the representativeness of QUALICOPC physician and patient respondents in Ontario using health administrative data.MethodsThis representativeness study linked QUALICOPC physician and patient respondents in Ontario to health administrative databases at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. Physician respondents were compared to other physicians in their practice group and all Ontario primary care physicians on demographic and practice characteristics. Patient respondents were compared to other patients rostered to their primary care physicians, patients rostered to their physicians’ practice groups, and a random sample of Ontario residents on sociodemographic characteristics, morbidity, and health care utilization. Standardized differences were calculated to compare the distribution of characteristics across cohorts.ResultsQUALICOPC physician respondents included a higher proportion of younger, female physicians and Canadian medical graduates compared to other Ontario primary care physicians. A higher proportion of physician respondents practiced in Family Health Team models, compared to the provincial proportion for primary care physicians. QUALICOPC patient respondents were more likely to be older and female, with significantly higher levels of morbidity and health care utilization, compared with the other patient groups examined. However, when looking at the QUALICOPC physicians’ whole rosters, rather than just the patient survey respondents, the practice profiles were similar to those of the other physicians in their practice groups and Ontario patients in general.ConclusionsComparisons revealed some differences in responding physicians’ demographic and practice characteristics, as well as differences in responding patients’ characteristics compared to the other patient groups tested, which may have resulted from the visit-based sampling strategy. Ontario QUALICOPC physicians had similar practice profiles as compared to non-participating physicians, providing some evidence that the participating practices are representative of other non-participating practices, and patients selected by visit-based sampling may also be representative of visiting patients in other practices. Those using QUALICOPC data should understand this limited representativeness when generalizing results, and consider the potential for bias in their analyses.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12875-018-0767-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Sexual healthcare knowledge, attitudes, and practices among primary care physicians in Trinidad and Tobago

“…The study achieved a response rate of 60%, which is a major strength as the trend of response rates usually is much lower for clinician surveys in PC. [ 21 22 23 ] However, a limitation of this study was its relatively small sample size. It should be noted that the total number of PCPs in the entire population was n = 175 and those who were available (on island and at work) when the survey was disseminated was n = 155 and they were all targeted and successfully a 60% response rate ( n = 93) was achieved.…”

Factors Associated with Survey Non-Response in a Cross-Sectional Survey of Persons with an Axial Spondyloarthritis or Osteoarthritis Claims Diagnosis

“…Interestingly, similar factors were associated with non-response in both samples: age, sex, being in rheumatologic/orthopedic treatment, having received influenza vaccination, and prescription of physical therapy. Several other studies found similar results regarding age and sex of responders [ 22 , 23 ], but the interaction of these was not addressed. In the Quality and Costs of Primary Care Canadian survey [ 23 ] that collected physician and patient reported data in primary care, Li et al, 2018 [ 23 ] observed similar results regarding the age and sex of responders: They were older and more often female than non-responders.…”

“…Opposed to our findings, non-responders had more comorbidities than responders. As the patients for the study by Li et al, 2018 [ 23 ] were consecutively sampled in the waiting room, there might be a bias toward persons with higher health care utilization. Another study by Shortreed et al, 2016 [ 24 ] used telephone interviews in patients 45 years or older receiving chronic opioid therapy.…”

Knowledge, attitude and practice of physicians regarding periconceptional folic acid for women at low risk of a neural tube defect affected pregnancy

“…Interestingly, however, a majority of studies assessing physicians, whether it be their knowledge, attitude and/or practice, regardless of geographical location, possess an interesting commonality. A majority of respondents tend to be female ( Li et al, 2018 ), which is unexpected given the fact that it has been historically reported that a majority of Canadian family physicians generally remains male ( Physicians in Canada, 2017 ). The Physicians in Canada 2016 Summary Report highlighted that more recently, the number of female physicians continues to rise, with a 21% increase seen between 2012 and 2016 ( Institute, 2016 ).…”