What's the Price of a Research Subject? Approaches to Payment for Research Participation

Abstract

Successful clinical research depends on the ability to recruit research subjects. Tension between the need to recruit subjects and the obligation to offer them certain types of protection has made recruitment a persistent ethical challenge. One important and difficult issue involves whom investigators should enroll in research studies. A different but equally crucial issue concerns the types of inducement investigators should use to recruit subjects.For decades, many investigators have paid subjects for participating in research studies, and this practice remains one of the most controversial methods of recruitment.¹ Despite discussions over many years, ethical issues about payment remain unresolved. . . .