title: Development and preliminary results of the Financial Incentive Coercion Assessment questionnaire.
abstract: Financial incentives are often used in research, yet no measure exists to determine whether they lead to perceptions of coercion in subjects. We present a preliminary evaluation of a recently developed Financial Incentive Coercion Assessment (FICA) questionnaire. FICA measures perceived coercion specifically related to payment for participation in a research study. Two hundred sixty-six subjects were recruited from a large randomized controlled trial; 152 returned for a 6-month follow-up and completed the FICA. Approximately 30% of participants reported the major reason for participating was "for the money," but less than 5% felt that the financial incentives were coercive. FICA results are consistent with levels of perceived coercion using an alternative measure. Initial assessment of responses on the FICA suggests that it may provide a novel approach to measuring perceived coercion from financial incentives in research. Future work will refine the FICA and analyze its psychometric properties.
authors: Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33136, USA. mbyrne2@med.miami.edu
authors: Margaret M
authors: MM
authors: Byrne
authors: Jason R
authors: JR
authors: Croft
authors: Michael T
authors: MT
authors: French
authors: Karen L
authors: KL
authors: Dugosh
authors: David S
authors: DS
authors: Festinger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003068:Coercion; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D010358:Patient Participation / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology; D018579:Patient Selection; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012106:Research / Q000191:economics; D012107:Research Design; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires