Payne, Maloney, McLaughlin, Schultz, Anthony, Ellsworth-Wolk, Montague

Background:  A Research Council (RC) of Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS) was developed in March 2005 to advance nursing research at three community hospitals in the mid-west. A Nurses’ Diabetes Survey was developed and distributed to eligible medical-surgical nurses.  A comprehensive plan was developed to maximize return rates.

Purpose: Describe the methodology to maximize staff nurse participation in the research process and compare return rates of surveys based on incentives utilized.

Methodology:  A plan was developed for data collection and use of incentives to achieve response rates, enlisting administrative support, as well as survey dissemination and retrieval.  Incentives were planned to maximize returns such as on-going personal contact 24/7, candy upon completion of the survey, and fruit baskets for nursing units with at least a 60% return rate.

Results: Hospital one (N=214), which followed the plan, experienced the highest rate of return at 67%.  Hospital two (N=138) followed the plan except for the face-to-face interaction when distributing the surveys and had a 58% return.  Hospital three (N=76) followed the plan on only one unit which had a greater than 60% return.  The plan was not able to be followed on the remaining units and the overall return rate was 25%. A review of the process indicated that hospital one had distributed all surveys face-to-face while the other two hospitals placed the surveys in nurses’ mailboxes. 

Conclusions: Using a plan that includes administrative support, face-to-face distribution and tangible incentives for completion had the best rate of survey return.  Prior studies that focus on only a single method have typically not produced the same level of response rates as when a more comprehensive approach is used that addresses all phases of the data collection process.