Table 1.

Comparison of recruitment strategies

FACTORS	ONTARIO	MANITOBA	BRITISH COLUMBIA
FP sampling strategy	FPs were sampled from a list of all licensed FPs registered with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario; all rural physicians were invited owing to small numbers and a simple random sample of urban physicians was drawn	FPs were sampled from a list of all physicians registered with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba; FPs were stratified by urban and rural status and an equal no. of invitations was sent to each group	FPs were sampled from lists from the British Columbia College of Family Physicians and the UBC Department of Family Practice
No. of FPs invited	3175 (2400 urban, 945 rural)*	500 (250 urban, 250 rural)	> 4200
Response rate, %	19.2 (37.6 rural, 12.0 urban)	45.6	5.5
Method of invitation	Invitation was sent by postal mail	Invitation was sent by postal mail	Invitation was sent by e-mail
Date of survey invitations	2 waves of invitations were mailed: December 3, 2012, and January 30, 2013.	June 11, 2012	October 24, 2012
Date of survey closure	March 30, 2013	September 28, 2012	March 31, 2013
Additional letters or reminders	All physicians were sent notification letters 1 wk before the invitation letter and thank-you letters 2 wk after the invitation letter; 2 reminder letters were sent to nonrespondents	Physicians were sent notification letters before the invitation letters and 2 reminder letters	None
Incentives	None	Unconditional $10 coffee card	Participants could win 1 of 3 tablet computers

UBC—University of British Columbia.

^*A total of 50 rural and 120 urban FPs were excluded if they had no street address, if the address was a military base, if they lived on reserve, or if they lived in a correctional facility.