{"doi":"10.2196/54343","title":"Impact of Incentives on Physician Participation in Research Surveys: Randomized Experiment","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Web-based surveys can be effective data collection instruments; however, participation is notoriously low, particularly among professionals such as physicians. Few studies have explored the impact of varying amounts of monetary incentives on survey completion. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to conduct a randomized study to assess how different incentive amounts influenced survey participation among neurologists in the United States. METHODS: We distributed a web-based survey using standardized email text to 21,753 individuals randomly divided into 5 equal groups (≈4351 per group). In phase 1, each group was assigned to receive either nothing or a gift card for US $10, $20, $50, or $75, which was noted in the email subject and text. After 4 reminders, phase 2 began and each remaining individual was offered a US $75 gift card to complete the survey. We calculated and compared the proportions who completed the survey by phase 1 arm, both before and after the incentive change, using a chi-square test. As a secondary outcome, we also looked at survey participation as opposed to completion. RESULTS: For the 20,820 emails delivered, 879 (4.2%) recipients completed the survey; of the 879 recipients, 622 (70.8%) were neurologists. Among the neurologists, most were male (412/622, 66.2%), White (430/622, 69.1%), non-Hispanic (592/622, 95.2%), graduates of American medical schools (465/622, 74.8%), and board certified (598/622, 96.1%). A total of 39.7% (247/622) completed their neurology residency more than 20 years ago, and 62.4% (388/622) practiced in an urban setting. For phase 1, the proportions of respondents completing the survey increased as the incentive amount increased (46/4185, 1.1%; 76/4165, 1.8%; 86/4160, 2.1%; 104/4162, 2.5%; and 119/4148, 2.9%, for US $0, $10, $20, $50, and $75, respectively; P<.001). In phase 2, the survey completion rate for the former US $0 arm increased to 3% (116/3928). Those originally offered US $10, $20, $50, and $75 who had not yet participated were less likely to participate compared with the former US $0 arm (116/3928, 3%; 90/3936, 2.3%; 80/3902, 2.1%; 88/3845, 2.3%; and 74/3878, 1.9%, for US $0, $10, $20, $50, and $75, respectively; P=.03). For our secondary outcome of survey participation, a trend similar to that of survey completion was observed in phase 1 (55/4185, 1.3%; 85/4165, 2%; 96/4160, 2.3%; 118/4162, 2.8%; and 135/4148, 3.3%, for US $0, $10, $20, $50, and $75, respectively; P<.001) and phase 2 (116/3928, 3%; 90/3936, 2.3%; 80/3902, 2.1%; 88/3845, 2.3%; and 86/3845, 2.2%, for US $0, $10, $20, $50, and $75, respectively; P=.10). CONCLUSIONS: As expected, monetary incentives can boost physician survey participation and completion, with a positive correlation between the amount offered and participation.","journal":"JMIR Formative Research","year":2024,"id":478523,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9471,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":906094,"name":"Shalmali Bane","orcid":"0000-0002-4074-3437","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1317334,"name":"Kayla Kinsler","orcid":"0009-0004-4972-7523","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1220938,"name":"Amadeia Rector","orcid":"0000-0002-6590-847X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":461637,"name":"Yashaar Chaichian","orcid":"0000-0002-2231-3900","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":739968,"name":"Titilola Falasinnu","orcid":"0000-0002-9580-4743","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249439,"name":"Julia F. Simard","orcid":"0000-0001-5735-9856","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1154576,"name":"Saadiya Hawa","orcid":"0000-0001-6763-2035","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":9,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:06:46.330532Z","pmid":"38743466","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}