Previous studies suggest that refusals form the largest proportion of nonresponse for household surveys. As face-to-face household health surveys are uncommon in several countries, it might be advantageous for prospective surveys to preemptively tackle respondents’ refusal to survey participation. Using contact history data from the Saudi National Mental Health Survey, we examined the relationship between social environmental factors, respondent characteristics, survey request concerns recorded by interviewers, and respondents’ propensity to refuse to participate in the survey. Content analysis and logistic regressions were conducted. Our findings suggest that urbanicity, region, socioeconomic status, age, and gender are associated with refusal. Patriarchal gatekeepers and specific survey-related concerns are more likely to lead to temporary refusals compared to final refusals. These results have implications for survey researchers employing similar recruitment and data collection methods, for example in tailoring refusal conversion strategies for interviewers to address concerns expressed by Saudi and/or culturally similar respondents.

先前的研究表明，拒绝是家庭调查中不回答的最大比例。由于在一些国家很少进行面对面的家庭健康调查，因此前瞻性调查优先解决受访者拒绝参与调查的问题可能是有利的。使用来自沙特国家心理健康调查的联系历史数据，我们检查了社会环境因素，受访者特征，访调员记录的调查要求关注事项以及受访者拒绝参加调查的倾向之间的关系。进行了内容分析和逻辑回归。我们的发现表明，城市化程度，地区，社会经济地位，年龄和性别与拒绝相关。与最终拒绝相比，重男轻女的守门人和与调查相关的特定问题更有可能导致暂时拒绝。这些结果对采用类似招聘和数据收集方法的调查研究人员具有意义，例如在为面试官量身定制拒绝转换策略以解决沙特人和/或文化相似的受访者表达的担忧时。