Response rate

Response rate (also known as completion rate or return rate) in survey research refers to the ratio of number of people who answered the survey divided by the number of people in the sample. It is usually expressed in the form of a percentage.

Example: if 1,000 surveys were sent by mail, and 257 were successfully completed and returned, then the response rate would be 25.7 %.

In direct marketing, the response rate refers to the number of people who responded to the offer.

In oncology, response rate (RR) is a figure representing the percentage of patients whose cancer shrinks (termed a partial response, PR) or disappears after treatment (termed a complete response, CR). In simpler terms RR=PR+CR.

The higher the response rate the more reliable the results from the sample.