Financial incentives at all trial arms (ID RET10)
Evidence Summary
What is it?
Participants receive a monetary incentive (check or voucher) along with their sample collection kits. Response rates are the highest for the highest monetary value ($10).
Does it work?
Addition of monetary incentives to all trial arms may favour the higher value incentive to increase retention.
How big is the effect?
An increase of 10% (95% confidence interval = 3% to 23%).
How certain are we?
GRADE Low certainty.
Recommendation
We recommend that trialists consider adding monetary incentives to all trial arms.
How can I use this straight away?
See Resource bundle below for details on how to implement financial incentives at all trial arms.
Practical Impact
Imagine initial retention is 65% of those approached. You have a trial with 100 participants that needs responses from 80 to meet its statistical power calculations. Retention of 65% means that you will be 15 responses short (see chart below).
Now imagine using financial incentives at all trial arms. The chart below shows the impact of an absolute increase of 10% (95% CI = 3% to 23%). Retention is now 75%, which means our best estimate is that you would now only be 5 responses short.
Cumulative Meta-Analysis*
Resource Bundle
How to Cite
More Information
- This summary is from the Cochrane review of strategies to improve retention in randomised trials (https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.MR000032.pub3/full).
- The ‘Does it work?’ statement is structured according to effect size and GRADE certainty as per GRADE Guidelines 26 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2019.10.014). The statement is for large effect size and Low GRADE certainty.
- The recommendation statement is the consensus view of the authors of this summary based on the GRADE certainty and features of the trials contributing to the evidence.
- If you have any questions contact info@trialforge.org.
