Promised and Lottery Airtime Incentives to Improve Interactive Voice Response Survey Participation Among Adults in Bangladesh and Uganda: Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

Abstract

Increased mobile phone penetration allows the interviewing of respondents using interactive voice response surveys in low- and middle-income countries. However, there has been little investigation of the best type of incentive to obtain data from a representative sample in these countries.

We assessed the effect of different airtime incentives options on cooperation and response rates of an interactive voice response survey in Bangladesh and Uganda.

The open-label randomized controlled trial had three arms: (1) no incentive (control), (2) promised airtime incentive of 50 Bangladeshi Taka (US $0.60; 1 BDT is approximately equivalent to US $0.012) or 5000 Ugandan Shilling (US $1.35; 1 UGX is approximately equivalent to US $0.00028), and (3) lottery incentive (500 BDT and 100,000 UGX), in which the odds of winning were 1:20. Fully automated random-digit dialing was used to sample eligible participants aged ≥18 years. The risk ratios (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals for primary outcomes of response and cooperation rates were obtained using log-binomial regression.

Between June 14 and July 14, 2017, a total of 546,746 phone calls were made in Bangladesh, with 1165 complete interviews being conducted. Between March 26 and April 22, 2017, a total of 178,572 phone calls were made in Uganda, with 1248 complete interviews being conducted. Cooperation rates were significantly higher for the promised incentive (Bangladesh: 39.3%; RR 1.38, 95% CI 1.24-1.55, <i>P</i>&lt;.001; Uganda: 59.9%; RR 1.47, 95% CI 1.33-1.62, <i>P</i>&lt;.001) and the lottery incentive arms (Bangladesh: 36.6%; RR 1.28, 95% CI 1.15-1.45, <i>P</i>&lt;.001; Uganda: 54.6%; RR 1.34, 95% CI 1.21-1.48, <i>P</i>&lt;.001) than those for the control arm (Bangladesh: 28.4%; Uganda: 40.9%). Similarly, response rates were significantly higher for the promised incentive (Bangladesh: 26.5%%; RR 1.26, 95% CI 1.14-1.39, <i>P</i>&lt;.001; Uganda: 41.2%; RR 1.27, 95% CI 1.16-1.39, <i>P</i>&lt;.001) and lottery incentive arms (Bangladesh: 24.5%%; RR 1.17, 95% CI 1.06-1.29, <i>P</i>=.002; Uganda: 37.9%%; RR 1.17, 95% CI 1.06-1.29, <i>P</i>=.001) than those for the control arm (Bangladesh: 21.0%; Uganda: 32.4%).

Promised or lottery airtime incentives improved survey participation and facilitated a large sample within a short period in 2 countries.

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03773146; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03773146