Telephone subsidy: an effective incentive for successful participation in home memory monitor study.

CONTEXT: The Collaborative Home Infant Monitoring Evaluation (CHIME) study enrolled healthy term infants and 3 groups of infants considered to be at increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome to evaluate apnea and bradycardia events in the home. Mother-infant pairs without a telephone were ineligible for enrollment.

OBJECTIVE

To determine whether mother-infant pairs who were offered a telephone subsidy would agree to enroll in CHIME and achieve protocol compliance rates comparable with those of matched subjects able to afford telephones.

DESIGN

Thirty-one telephone subsidy subjects were retrospectively compared with 55 control subjects matched for study group, site, birth weight, and maternal race, age, and education.

SETTING

Collaborative Home Infant Monitoring Evaluation clinical research centers in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Toledo, Ohio.

INTERVENTION: Provision of telephone subsidy to otherwise eligible enrollees for CHIME.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Frequency of compliance with protocol requirements for follow-up evaluations and for extent of home monitoring.

RESULTS

Subsidy subjects achieved protocol completion rates that were comparable with those of control subjects, for developmental assessments at 56 and 92 weeks postconceptional age (PCA), and for the polysomnogram. Unexpectedly, however, subsidy subjects were more likely to have a developmental assessment at 44 weeks PCA (P =.02), as well as a cry analysis (P =.04). They were also more likely to use the CHIME home monitor for more hours during weeks 2 through 5 (P =.004), have a higher percentage using the monitor for 10 or more hours per week during weeks 2 through 5 (P =.009), and have a higher total number of days of monitor use throughout 6 months (P <.001). Mean cost of the subsidy was $3.25 per day of monitor use, and monitor use per day was directly related to total cost of the subsidy (P =.02).

CONCLUSIONS

Telephone subsidy is an effective financial incentive. At least within the context of the CHIME study, telephone subsidy enhanced access to health care, and in some categories it resulted in enhanced protocol compliance.