Development and preliminary results of the Financial Incentive Coercion Assessment questionnaire

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.