I am recruiting subjects for one of my PhD studies using an email invitation sent when they make a first appointment to attend a clinic. However half of those invited so far have hit the 'I do not want to participate' button and the other half are ignoring the message. Because of the software we know that these messages are arriving and being opened.

Lots of thought and advice was taken about the wording of the invite but it is not proving effective.

It has been suggested I offer a prize draw to participants however I am concerned about this causing problems with my sample - are those to participate for this reason the same as others invited but declining.

Any thoughts or suggestions gratefully received.

Hi Dafydd

Your post triggered a distant memory in my mind so I dived into my methodology pile of articles - haven't done that in a while! Not sure if you are qual or quant or mixed methods or indeed the age or type of your targetted participants but an article by Tom Clark in Qualitative Research (2010) might help, its title says it all - "On 'being researched': why do people engage with qualitative research?". If you can't access Qual Res I can email you the pdf. In it he goes through the various reasons people agree to participate. Part of his paper is also concerned about the lack of research into why people do or don't participate.

Also, there is a small sub section in 'Informed consent in social research: A literature review by Wiles et al (2005). Sub section 4.4 is titled 'The use of incentives'. The pdf is on open access at:
http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/85/1/MethodsReviewPaperNCRM-001.pdf

For myself [tbh], I don't agree with incentives particularly when you would be offering an incentive becuase you got such a poor response to your initial call. The motivations and subsequent answers to your questions could be called into question. It could make for a sticky viva situ! Interesting to hear other opinions though. I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about the whole area of informed consent etc etc!

======= Date Modified 03 Jun 2011 19:00:45 =======
Hi Dafydd! I empathise with you- my participants are a clinical sample and recruitment has been very difficult. It is very common in my area of research to use some sort of financial incentive (clinical psychology). I didn't because I didn't have the funds to do it, but a lot of the bigger non-
PhD studies in my team pay participants in either cash or vouchers. I have also been paid to take part in other clinical research in the department- I actually didn't want to take the cash but the researcher insisted I took it or else I would be 'different' than the other participants and it would mess up his write-up!

I think one thing worth bearing in mind is that to some extent, all people who participate in research voluntarily might be different from those who decline, in terms of personality characteristics and motives for taking part amongst other things. This is something I have had to acknowledge in my work. Unfortunately, since I can't force everyone with a particular diagnosis to participate in my research, there is absolutely no way of getting around that one! So even if you don't use financial incentives then this would be an issue. I suppose whether you decide to use financial incentives or not might depend on your research participants and what the aim of your study is- is the incentive of money to attract your participants likely to attract people who might be different in respect to something you are investigating? If for example you were investigating how hard up students are during their undergrad degree then obviously paying people to take part would skew your sample and affect your results. But if it's completely unrelated then there might not be any harm in doing so. Certainly in the clinical research undertaken in my department offering cash for people to take part has never been questioned or made an issue of by reviewers or other researchers etc.

Either way- good luck with your recruitment. I don't know who you are recruiting but is there any way you could make the invitation more personal? My participants are recruited through clinics, but the initial invitation to participate actually comes from their consultant rather than the researcher, and then the contact details are passed on if they consent to being contacted by the researcher. This seems to work quite well, particularly since their consultant (my second sup) is lovely so they all like to feel as though they're helping him out!

Best, KB

Ady and Keenbean,

Thank you both for helpful posts and for the pointer to the papers. I am hoping that by changing the way the request is made I can improve response and am minded to do a small subsidiary study exploring with some of those who have declined reasons for their decision.

Again thank you

Dafydd

My experience of sending out a broad email invivtation to participate in research, is that they don't seem to work. I also had a clinical population who were recruited through clinics, and were motivated to participate because they wanted more to be known about their condition. It was the control participants who were harder to find, and the tended to end up being people I had some sort of link to.

Incentives are fairly widely used in Psychology. I didn't pay my participants but I work at an MRI centre where financial incentives seem to be the norm. I have read some stuff about paying people to do research actually reducing people's willingness if it is a small token gesture it's seen as "not worth it" as they don't feel adequately compensated, whereas not paying people means they participate to feel they've made a difference. Really sorry I can't give you a reference as I read a number of books about the same time on rationality, irrationality and behavioural economics.

Good luck getting your sample. I think it can be one of the hardest thangs about research.

Hi,

I think it's fine to use an incentive, it's pretty common call in psychology. Usually people don't mind taking part but the incentive gives them the push over the edge! If your material is sensitive/may cause distress, just make sure the incentive you offer isn't overwhelmingly large so they feel inclined to carry on through being upset. Also put in loads of warning signs along the way in the info sheet and consent form that your research may be upsetting and remind them they have the right to withdraw.
In terms of whether it affects the type of people that participate, it might do, but that can be said about those who accept/decline without an incentive. To be honest, if anything you might get a wider spread, without an incentive the only people that will do it will have a certain personality (helpful/maybe in academia themselves). Whereas money unites us all! Haha. People who wouldn't normally do research will take part.

My field is healthcare research from a psychological slant so it is interesting to hear that inducements are not unusual.

Taking the helpful comments of those posting here (nice to see you got your first star Mariannechua!) alongside other reading I think it will be appropriate to continue to collect data from those taking part without an inducement (four recruited over last two weeks compared to projected ten) and then in a few months see if a faster data collection rate is going to be needed.

This way if I do offer inducements I will be able to compare statistically the responses from the non induced vrs induced participants and discuss the possible meaning of any differences.

Thought I would post an update incase it was helpful to someone else's study.

Over the first two weeks of data collection 3 subjects had agreed to participate in my study (20 meeting study criteria had been asked). The invitation was asked after patients had completed a web based pre-examination form prior to attending a community based physical therapy service.

I changed the procedure so patients were invited to the study prior to the pre-examination questionnaire. This change alone has significantly increased the response rate and in the last two weeks a further 19 patients meeting entry criteria have been invited - only now half have accepted so we have an additional 10 subjects.

So it looks like I am back on track with the anticipated recruitment rate with no need for inducement :)

Thanks for the update, Dafydd and glad to know things progressing for you :-)