Adaptations for remote research work: a modified web-push strategy compared to a mail-only strategy for administering a survey of healthcare experiences

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic required that our research team change our mail-only (MO) strategy for a research survey to a strategy more manageable by staff working remotely. We used a modified web-push approach (MWP), in which patients were mailed a request to respond online and invited to call if they preferred the questionnaire by mail or phone. We also changed from a pre-completion gift to a post-completion gift card incentive. Our objective is to compare response patterns between modes for a survey that used an MO strategy pre-pandemic followed by an MWP strategy peri-pandemic for data collection. METHODS: Observational study using data from a national multi-scale survey about patients’ experience of specialty care coordination administered via MO in 2019 and MWP from 2020 to 2021 to Veterans receiving primary care and specialty care within the Veterans Health Administration (VA). We compared response rates, respondent characteristics and responses about care coordination between MO and MWP, applying propensity weights to account for differences in the underlying samples. RESULTS: The response rate was lower for MWP vs. MO (13.4% vs. 36.6%), OR = 0.27, 95% CI = 0.25–0.30, P < .001). Respondent characteristics were similar across MO and MWP. Coordination scale scores tended to be slightly higher for MWP, but the effect sizes for these differences between modes were small for 9 out of 10 scales. CONCLUSIONS: While the logistics of MWP survey data collection are well-suited to the remote research work environment, response rates were lower than those for the MO method. Future studies should examine addition of multi-mode contacts and/or pre-completion incentives to increase response rates for MWP. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12874-023-02066-5.