Willingness to Participate in a Daily Smartphone Well-being Study

Comparing the Effectiveness of Non-financial Incentive to Participate in a Smartphone Experience Sampling Method Well-being Study: Protocol for a Randomised Controlled Trial

This clinical trial aims to compare the effectiveness of financial and social incentives in motivating urban populations to participate in Experience Sampling Method (ESM) wellbeing studies and explore alternative incentive preferences to increase participation.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Willingness to Participate
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: No Incentive Email; Behavioral: Financial Incentive Email; Behavioral: Social Incentive Email

Detailed Description

The goal of this clinical trial is to investigate the comparison of two incentives to determine their effectiveness for motivating an urban population to participate in a Experience Sampling Method wellbeing studies. It will also investigate alternative incentive preferences that can motivate the population. The main questions it aims to answer are:

• Does the provision of a financial incentive or social incentive to neighbourhood research participants increase the willingness of individuals to participate in ESM research compared to offering no incentive?
• What are the reasons for unwillingness to participate in ESM studies?
• What are the alternative incentive preference that could increase willingness to participate in ESM studies?

Researchers will compare monetary incentive (4 x £100 prize draw qualification) to a non-monetary incentive (invitation to end of project social event to engage research findings) to how they influence willingness to participate compared to offering no incentive.

Participants will:

• Receive receive an email describing a future experience sampling study in the neighbourhood for at least two times.
• Complete a survey to indicate their positive or negative interest in the hypothetical study.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 324
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United Kingdom
  • Greater London
    • London, Greater London, United Kingdom, N1C 4AB
      • Related Argent

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Registered on the King's Cross community smartphone application.
• App users living, working, or have previously visited King's Cross
• Given consent to receive email communications during their smartphone app sign-up.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Users of the King's Cross community smartphone app who have not given consent to receive email communication about the neighbourhood

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Triple

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Placebo Comparator: Control Group; Participants in this group will receive no incentive for participating in the future experience sampling study.	Behavioral: No Incentive Email; Participant will receive an email describing a hypothetical experience sampling study that will happen in King's Cross where he or she is an inhabitant as a worker, resident, or visitor. However, this email will not include any promised compensation for future participation in the hypothetical wellbeing study in the neighbourhood. This group serves as the control group to compare the effects of incentives on participation rates.
Experimental: Financial Incentive Group; Participants in this group will receive a financial incentive for participating in the future experience sampling study.	Behavioral: Financial Incentive Email; Participant will receive an email describing a hypothetical experience sampling study that will happen in King's Cross where he or she is an inhabitant as a worker, resident, or visitor. This email will include a paragraph that describes a compensation for participation in the future study. The type of compensation that will be offered is a financial compensation, which is a chance of enter a prize draw to win a 4 X £100 voucher which can be used to purchase goods and services within the King's Cross neighbourhood in London.
Experimental: Non-Financial Incentive Group; Participants in this group will receive a non-financial incentive for participating in the future experience sampling study.	Behavioral: Social Incentive Email; Participant will receive an email describing a hypothetical experience sampling study that will happen in King's Cross where he or she is an inhabitant as a worker, resident, or visitor. This email will include a paragraph that describes a compensation for participation in the future study. The type of compensation that will be offered is a non-financial compensation, which is an invitation to participate in a social event that will be organised by the researchers and the neighbourhood asset manager team at the end of the research project. This event will be exclusive and it will be an opportunity for participants to socialize with other study participants in the neighbourhood. It will also be an opportunity for the study participants to feel they are contributing a change to the neighbourhood and will be able to articulate their views about the wellbeing research findings which is expected to be used to inform future interventions in the neighbourhood.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Willingness to participate	Measure the proportion of participants in each arm who agree to participate in the experience sampling study.	From enrollment to the end of treatment at 7 weeks

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Reasons for non-participation	Participants who are not willing to participate in the future experience sampling study will be asked to indicate four out of seven reasons for the unwillingness.	From enrollment to the end of treatment at 7 weeks
Alternative Incentive Preferences	Participants who are not willing to participate in the future experience sampling study and who select "inadequate compensation" as one of the reasons for not participating will be asked to select desired incentives from a list of seven options that could motivate a change in participation decision.	From enrollment to the end of treatment at 7 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Manchester
• Collaborators: Economic and Social Research Council, United Kingdom
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Lesley-Anne Carter, University of Manchester; Principal Investigator: Jack Benton, University of Manchester; Principal Investigator: Jamie Anderson, University of Manchester

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 12, 2024
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 30, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): November 30, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: March 5, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 5, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 6, 2025
• Last Verified: March 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Experience Sampling Method; Willingness to Participate; Neighbourhood studies
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2023-17042-30162

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: With the exception of the identifying email addresses, the demographic and outcome data that was collected from the participant will be publicly made available on UK Data Service ReShare, a platform for archiving research data.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Data requests can be submitted starting 12 months after article publication and the duration the data will be made accessible for is based on the terms and conditions attached to the ReShare platform where the data will be archived.
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: Access to trial IPD can be requested by qualified researchers engaging in independent scientific research
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; SAP; ANALYTIC_CODE

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No