Exercise
A doctor has passed through the preliminary stages of the assessment of her research project and has moved on to recruiting participants. She is finding difficulty obtaining volunteers and is considering offering payment. The project is intended to involve participants for six weeks and she is considering offering inmates ten pounds per week.
Which of the following considerations should be taken into account when assessing the suitability of such incentives?
(Choose one or more of the following).
4. Incentives should not be used in prisons as it is inappropriate to reward people who are being punished.
1. Cigarettes would be better than money in a prison setting.
2. Provided the research protocol has received approval from an independent review body, the question of incentives is irrelevant.
6. The use of incentives is not a significant ethical issue. People can judge for themselves whether the risk is worth the reward.
5. Incentives need to be assessed in terms of the general resources available to the participants, rather than judged in absolute terms.
3. The use of incentives in a prison setting needs to be carefully considered, both in terms of its effect on the ability of individual participants to give his or her free and informed consent, to assess risks, and its effect on the wider prison population.