For love or money? An exploratory study of why injecting drug users participate in research

Aims. To examine injecting drug user (IDU) motivations as research particip ants. Design. Convenience sampling facilitated by recruitment notices distr ibuted through needle and syringe programmes (NSPs), and snowballing within peer networks. Setting. NSPs in six suburbs throughout the Melbourne metro politan area. Participants. One hundred and fifty-four current ID Us. The m ean age was 28 years, 62% were male, and 80% nominated heroin as preferred drug. Measurements. Interviewer-administered survey including questions abo ut socio-demographics, drug use and main reasons for participating in resea rch. Findings. IDU research participation reasons were consistent with moti vational themes such as economic gain (46%), expression of citizenship (38% ), altruism (19%), personal satisfaction (17%), drug user activism (16%) an d seeking information or assistance (5%). Most respondents (58%) cited reas ons where the primary beneficiaries of participation were other individuals or groups (citizenship, altruism, drug user activism) or both self and oth ers. Conclusions. IDU motivations for research involvement appear to be mul ti-dimensional, rarely motivated by economic gain alone, and not necessaril y defined by direct benefits or gains to themselves. These findings are rel evant to the question of IDU research payment ethics.