SynthesisHealth psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association2013
Incentivizing blood donation: systematic review and meta-analysis to test Titmuss' hypotheses.
Synthesis in Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Efficacy of communication interventions for promoting blood donation in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review.Vox sanguinis · 2025Pooled it
- Determinants of blood donation willingness in the European Union: a cross-country perspective on perceived transfusion safety, concerns, and incentives.Transfusion · 2019Trial
- Balancing access to donor human milk: Rationing vs expanding use.Nutrition in clinical practice : official publication of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition · 2026Review
- Knowledge, attitudes and practices towards blood donation among donors: a cross-sectional study in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Article
- Remuneration of donors for cell and gene therapies: an update on the principles and perspective of the World Marrow Donor Association.Bone marrow transplantation · 2024Review
- A fair exchange: why living kidney donors in England should be financially compensated.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2023Review
- A study on blood donor characteristics and preferred environment of South Koreans during the COVID-19 pandemic: A conjoint analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- The influence of sociodemographic and donation behaviour characteristics on blood donation motivations.Blood transfusion = Trasfusione del sangue · 2021Article
- "Blood for Blood"? Personal Motives and Deterrents for Blood Donation in the German Population.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Motivation structures of blood donation: a means-end chain approach.International journal of health economics and management · 2020Article
- Changing health behaviors using financial incentives: a review from behavioral economics.BMC public health · 2019Review
- Monetary compensation and blood donor return: results of a donor survey in southwest Germany.Transfusion medicine and hemotherapy : offizielles Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Transfusionsmedizin und Immunhamatologie · 2014Article
- When do financial incentives reduce intrinsic motivation? comparing behaviors studied in psychological and economic literatures.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2013Review
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesTitmuss hypothesized that paying blood donors would reduce the quality of the blood donated and would be economically inefficient. We report here the first systematic review to test these hypotheses, reporting on both financial and nonfinancial incentives.
methodStudies deemed eligible for inclusion were peer-reviewed, experimental studies that presented data on the quantity (as a proxy for efficiency) and quality of blood donated in at least two groups: those donating blood when offered an incentive, and those donating blood with no offer of an incentive. The following were searched: MEDLINE, EMBASE and PsycINFO using OVID SP, CINAHL via EBSCO and CENTRAL, the Cochrane Library, Econlit via EBSCO, JSTOR Health and General Science Collection, and Google.
resultsThe initial search yielded 1100 abstracts, which resulted in 89 full papers being assessed for eligibility, of which seven studies, reported in six papers, met the inclusion criteria. The included studies involved 93,328 participants. Incentives had no impact on the likelihood of donation (OR = 1.22 CI 95% 0.91-1.63; p = .19). There was no difference between financial and nonfinancial incentives in the quantity of blood donated. Of the two studies that assessed quality of blood, one found no effect and the other found an adverse effect from the offer of a free cholesterol test (β = 0.011 p < .05).
conclusionThe limited evidence suggests that Titmuss' hypothesis of the economic inefficiency of incentives is correct. There is insufficient evidence to assess their likely impact on the quality of the blood provided.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.