Web-Based and Telephone Surveys to Assess Public Perception Toward the National Health Insurance in Taiwan: A Comparison of Cost and Results

Abstract

BACKGROUND Numerous studies have examined the impact of global budget payment systems of health insurance on patient access to medical care. In order to monitor the population's accessibility to health services, a series of survey are often used to understand public perceptions of the health care provider. Taiwan implemented the single-payer National Health Insurance in 1995 and has been conducting a series of surveys to monitor public perception of the NHI after adopting a global budget payment system in 2002. Although telephone surveys are commonly used in obtaining public opinions on various public health issues, limitations such as higher cost and influence of interviewers do raise some concerns. Web-based surveys, one of the alternative methods, may be free from these problems. OBJECTIVE Our aim was to examine the difference of sociodemographic characteristics, satisfaction of NHI and NHI-contracted health care providers, attitude toward NHI-related issues, behavior in seeking medical advice and self-reported health status between those who completed Web-based surveys and those reached by telephone. METHODS This study compared the demographic factors of participants who took either a Web-based survey (1313 participants) or random digit dialing telephone survey (2411 participants) that contained identical questions. RESULTS Compared to telephone survey respondents, Web-based respondents tended to be younger (P