Incentives for recruiting

The TCPS does not recommend or discourage incentives. However, justification for incentives must be included in the REB submission form section «15. IDENTIFICATION AND RECRUITMENT OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS» and specific information should be added to the consent form (Article 3.1 and 3.2[j]).

Draw or lottery are acceptable method of recruitment provided that the prize, irrespective of the odds of winning, is not significant enough to unduly influence participation in the study. For research involving draws, specific information must be included in the consent form as required by Ontario law, such has information on the prize(s) and its/their value, the odds of winning and the number of participants in the study. This approach must not require subjects to pay money or other valuable consideration in order to participate. In addition, to respect the law, winning the lottery must be based on skill as well as chance. Thus, lotteries require the participants to answer a skill-testing question in order to qualify for a chance to win, thus personal information (name, phone number, email, etc.) must be collected for the draw, the researcher should maintain security of this information throughout the duration of the study.

Draws are not usually appropriate for anonymous research, as they would require identification where otherwise none would be needed, and present an unfair advantage to those willing to identify themselves, versus those who do not.