Not another questionnaire!: eliciting the views of general practitioners

Abstract

General practitioners have a central role to play in relation to planning and delivery of primary and community care services. This paper reports the experience of one health board in using a postal survey to ascertain the views of local GPs concerning services for people suffering from dementia. The survey was sent out once only and had a 41% response rate. Non-responding GPs were surveyed to ascertain reasons for failure to respond initially to the survey. The commonest reason given was that GPs felt they were being swamped with questionnaires. The paper discusses the problems of accessig GP opinion when time and resources are limited, the alternative strategies that could have been employed and the way forward in the light of the experience.