Financial Incentives for Veteran Therapy Completion

Summary

Recovery Resource Council (RRC) is one of the largest and most comprehensive non-profit mental and behavioral healthcare providers in North Texas. Accredited by the Joint Commission in Behavioral Health and licensed by the State of Texas as an Outpatient Treatment Center, RRC strives to promote wellness and recovery through a variety of services and programming. An important component of RRC programming is providing free counseling services to hundreds of U.S. veterans annually. While RRC observes great success for veterans who complete counseling, attendance can be a major obstacle.

Veterans who approach RRC for individual counseling services and consent to participate will be randomly assigned to the treatment or control group. The control group will receive counseling as usual. The treatment group will receive $500 gift card payments upon completing their 6th, 12th, and 18th counseling sessions, i.e., $1,500 in gift cards for completing all 18 sessions, the usual prescribed length of therapy. Our primary focus is to examine the impact of the financial incentives on therapy attendance and attrition. In addition, the investigators will estimate the impact on mental health using mental health inventories collected over the course of therapy sessions.

Conditions

• Motivation
• Stress Disorder
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Depression
• Depressive Disorder

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Financial Incentive

The intervention is offering a $500 gift card as an incentive for completing 6 counseling sessions to eligible individuals randomized into the treatment group. Another $500 gift card will be given after completing 12 counseling sessions, and another $500 gift card will be given after completing 18 counseling sessions.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Georgia

  collaborator OTHER

• Christopher Cronin

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Christopher Cronin, PhD · University of Notre Dame

• Ethan Lieber, PhD · University of Notre Dame

• Meghan Skira, PhD · University of Georgia

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-01-02

Primary Completion

2027-01-02

Completion

2028-01-02

Countries

• United States

Study Locations