Paying Clinical Research Participants: One Institution's Research Ethics Committees' Perspective

REGULATORY GUIDELINES LEAVE determination of coercion and undue influence of research participants open to interpretation. A web-based survey was conducted of the research ethics committees members at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) to evaluate their perspectives on paying participants in clinical research via general questions, as well as 8 short cases involving hypertension placebo-controlled trials, a pilot exercise study, a survey of substance abusers, a healthy-volunteer pharmacokinetic study, a twin study involving DNA samples, and an asthma medication study in children. Research ethics committee members were asked to state what payment they would consider appropriate for a given type of protocol. The results suggest that risk, time required, reimbursement for expenses, and inconvenience were important in determining appropriate payment, while income and funding source were not. The case studies revealed wide variation in recommended payments both within type of study and between studies.