Work

Participants’ Perspectives on Payment for Research Participation: A Qualitative Study

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: Investigators commonly offer payments to research participants to promote recruitment and retention. Yet the ethics of offering monetary incentives to research participants continues to be debated. Prior conceptual work has addressed some of these concerns; there is, however, also a need for empirical evidence to understand the effects of payment on participants. Here, we report the results of a qualitative study comprising (1) discourse analysis of recruitment conversations between study coordinators and potential participants for an actual clinical trial and (2) semistructured interviews with participants addressing the effects of an incentive on their decision-making. Many participants reported that money had been a motivation for enrolling in the clinical trial but did not use reasoning that suggested undue influence or unjust inducement. These findings add to a growing body of literature suggesting that payment is an ethically acceptable tool for promoting recruitment and retention in clinical trials.

Source: Ethics & Human Research

DOI: 10.1002/eahr.500147

Authors: Emily A. Largent, Whitney Eriksen, Frances K. Barg, S. Ryan Greysen, Scott D. Halpern

Institution: University of Pennsylvania

Language: English

Topic: Ethics in Clinical Research

Subfield: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institute on Aging, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Cancer Institute

Awards: G2268991709, G504619356, A Randomized Trial of Incentives for Research Participation