Trial reportJournal of medical Internet research2022
Investigating Rewards and Deposit Contract Financial Incentives for Physical Activity Behavior Change Using a Smartphone App: Randomized Controlled Trial.
Trial report in Journal of medical Internet research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Enhancing Weight Loss Programs: A Meta-Analysis of Financial Incentives and Behavior Change Techniques.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Pooled it
- A Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Loss versus Gain Incentives to Improve Adherence to an Obesity Treatment Intervention in Adolescents.Nutrients · 2024Trial
- Digital Group-Based Intervention for Physical Activity Promotion Among Thai Adults During the COVID-19 Lockdown: Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Trial
- Promoting healthy behaviour with financial incentives: three challenges and solutions for large scale implementation.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2026Review
- Framing financial incentives to promote hypertension care among rural primary doctors in Shandong Province, China: study protocol of a randomized field trial.Health economics review · 2025Article
- Influencing Factors and Implementation Pathways of Adherence Behavior in Intelligent Personalized Exercise Prescription: Qualitative Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2024Article
- Put your money where your feet are: The real-world effects of StepBet gamified deposit contracts for physical activity.Internet interventions · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 7 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundFinancial incentive interventions for improving physical activity have proven to be effective but costly. Deposit contracts (in which participants pledge their own money) could be an affordable alternative. In addition, deposit contracts may have superior effects by exploiting the power of loss aversion. Previous research has often operationalized deposit contracts through loss framing a financial reward (without requiring a deposit) to mimic the feelings of loss involved in a deposit contract.
objectiveThis study aimed to disentangle the effects of incurring actual losses (through self-funding a deposit contract) and loss framing. We investigated whether incentive conditions are more effective than a no-incentive control condition, whether deposit contracts have a lower uptake than financial rewards, whether deposit contracts are more effective than financial rewards, and whether loss frames are more effective than gain frames.
methodsHealthy participants (N=126) with an average age of 22.7 (SD 2.84) years participated in a 20-day physical activity intervention. They downloaded a smartphone app that provided them with a personalized physical activity goal and either required a €10 (at the time of writing: €1=US $0.98) deposit up front (which could be lost) or provided €10 as a reward, contingent on performance. Daily feedback on incentive earnings was provided and framed as either a loss or gain. We used a 2 (incentive type: deposit or reward) × 2 (feedback frame: gain or loss) between-subjects factorial design with a no-incentive control condition. Our primary outcome was the number of days participants achieved their goals. The uptake of the intervention was a secondary outcome.
resultsOverall, financial incentive conditions (mean 13.10, SD 6.33 days goal achieved) had higher effectiveness than the control condition (mean 8.00, SD 5.65 days goal achieved; P=.002; ηp
conclusionsFinancial incentives help increase physical activity, but deposit contracts were not more effective than rewards. Although self-funded deposit contracts can be offered at low cost, low uptake is an important obstacle to large-scale implementation. Unexpectedly, loss framing was less effective than gain framing. Therefore, we urge further research on their boundary conditions before using loss-framed incentives in practice. Because of limited statistical power regarding some research questions, the results of this study should be interpreted with caution, and future work should be done to confirm these findings.
trial registrationOpen Science Framework Registries osf.io/34ygt; https://osf.io/34ygt.
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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.