Maternity care survey 2018: technical report

6. Survey Response

Overview

The response rate for the survey is the number of forms returned as a percentage of the number of women in the sample once those considered ineligible have been removed. Ineligible women were those who had died between being sampled and receiving any of the survey letters or had moved address. 

Of the 5,165 women sampled, 5,064 were considered eligible. A total of 2,049 surveys were returned completed, giving an overall response rate of 40 per cent. This is similar to the 2015 survey which had a response rate of 41 per cent.

This section describes the differences in response rates by a range of variables. Please note that the total number sampled in Tables 4 to 7 only excludes those who had died, rather than all ineligible women, and so these figures will not sum to the total number of eligible women sampled used in the Scotland denominator.

Response Rates by NHS Board of Residence

Looking at NHS Boards with more than 50 respondents, response rates by NHS Board of Residence ranged from 34 per cent in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde to 47 per cent in NHS Borders and NHS Grampian (Table 4). 

Table 4: Response rate by NHS Board of Residence

Note:  The total number sampled and number of responses have been suppressed, ‘*’, for NHS Boards with less than 50 respondents.

Response Rate by Deprivation

Respondents were assigned to a deprivation quintile based on their postcode using the 2016 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD)^[7]. There is a clear decrease in response rates as deprivation increases, with 54 per cent of those in the least deprived quintile responding compared to only 24 per cent of those in the most deprived quintile (Table 5). This is consistent with patterns of response seen in other patient experience surveys.

Table 5: Response rate by deprivation quintile

Response Rate by Urban / Rural Location

Respondents were assigned to an Urban / Rural category based on their postcode using the Scottish Government’s 2013/14 six-fold Urban / Rural classification^[8]. Responses were higher for those in more rural areas compared to urban areas. Response rates ranged from 50 and 49 per cent for remote and accessible rural respondents respectively, to 36 and 37 per cent for respondents living in large and other urban areas respectively (Table 6).

Table 6: Response rate by urban / rural location

Response Rate by Age Group

The response rate was notably lower for the youngest age group, with only 22 per cent of those aged under 25 responding. This compares to response rates of 40 and 52 per cent for those aged between 25 and 34, and aged 35 or over respectively (Table 7).

Table 7: Response rate by age group

Note:  The number of responses is women’s self-reported age as provided in Q62. Fifteen women chose not to respond to this question and so have not been included in this analysis.

Method of Response

Of the 2,049 respondents, just over half responded by post and just under half completed the survey online (Table 8). There was only one telephone completion.

In previous surveys, over 90 per cent of responses were by post. This change in response mode is due to a change in the mailout methodology – the initial survey pack only provided details on how to complete the survey online or via the helpline, and no longer included a paper questionnaire. This has resulted in a notable increase in the number of online responses, to almost equal with postal completions.

Table 8: Response by method