Who's Doing the Math? Are We Really Compensating Research Participants?

Although compensation for expenses to participants in research projects is considered important and the primary reason for paying, there is no evidence to support that investigators and IRB members actually calculate participant cost. Payment recommendations for six hypothetical studies were obtaine...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of empirical research on human research ethics 2010-09, Vol.5 (3), p.57-65
Main Authors: Ripley, Elizabeth, Macrina, Francis, Markowitz, Monika, Gennings, Chris
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bioethics
Blood
Compensation
Cost estimates
Costs and Cost Analysis
Drug Evaluation - economics
Drug Evaluation - ethics
Ethics Committees, Research
Experimentation
Fees and Charges
Female
Health care payments
Human experimentation
Humans
Institutional review boards
Male
Medical research
Medications
Middle Aged
Patient Selection - ethics
Paying Research Participants
Payment models
Payments
Professional ethics
Research Subjects - economics
United States
Wage surveys
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Summary:Although compensation for expenses to participants in research projects is considered important and the primary reason for paying, there is no evidence to support that investigators and IRB members actually calculate participant cost. Payment recommendations for six hypothetical studies were obtained from a national survey of IRB chairpersons (N = 353) and investigators (N = 495). Survey respondents also recommended payment for specific study procedures. We calculated participant cost for the six hypothetical cases both by procedures and by time involvement. A large percentage recommended only token payments for survey, registry, and medical record review studies. Most chose payment for pharmaceutical studies but the recommended payment did not compensate for calculated costs. Results suggest that compensation and reimbursement as the primary reasons for paying research participants may not match actual practice.
ISSN:1556-2646
1556-2654
DOI:10.1525/jer.2010.5.3.57