Invitation of follow-up research participation - University of Nottingham

[phoenixmo]

Dear members,

My name is Phoenix and I am a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Work, Health and Organisation, the University of Nottingham. As part of my doctoral research I am conducting a research which aims to explore the empowering process and outcomes of health-related online support group use on health and quality of life for individuals living with HIV/AIDS.  I would like to invite individuals who are living with HIV/AIDS to take part in this survey.

This is an extension of a research project we conducted two years ago (for details of the previous project please go to http://forums.poz.com/index.php?topic=1319.0), and we hope that you would continue to contribute to this important research by participating in our survey. We have already obtained the permission from AIDSmeds.com to post this recruitment request.

Your response would be very important to help us gain a better understanding of the experiences and needs of individuals living with HIV/AIDS. We intend to publish our results in relevant academic and professional journals and we hope they will serve as important tools in guiding the design and evaluation of online intervention initiatives and to improve the quality of life of individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

We anticipate that this survey would take approximately 25 minutes to complete. If you are over 18 years old and are living with HIV/AIDS, please click the link below to access the survey. Your views will be treated in strictest confidence and we will not identify you from your response.

http://www.onlinesupportresearch.co.uk/study3/

Should you have any enquiries, please don't hesitate to contact me at lwxkhm1@nottingham.ac.uk. Thank you very much in advance and we are looking forward to hearing from you!

Phoenix Mo
Doctoral Candidate in Health Psychology

Supervisor: Dr Neil Coulson
Associate Professor in Health Psychology

[Peter Staley]

I encourage folks to help with this survey. 

The results of the first study/survey they did, which we helped them promote, will hopefully be published soon.  We've been informed that findings from the study have been presented at several international conferences (i.e. the European Health Psychology Conference 2007; International Congress of Psychology 2008, and Med.2.0 Conference 2008) and are now being reviewed by the Health Psychology journal.

Once the results of the study are published, we'll let you all know.  In the mean time, please help out with this additional survey.

[Finnboy]

There is nothing to indicate that the project has undergone the required ethical review and accountability evaluation and, tbh, I find it quite inconceivable that such a poorly structured survey would survive School of Psychology REC scrutiny. Has this research actually had any sort of Research Ethics Committee clearance from any department at Nottingham University?

 

 

[Matty the Damned]

Finnboy makes a good point.

Before anybody undertakes this survey I think we should how Peter responds.

MtD

[phoenixmo]

Dear members,

Thank you very much for your interest in the survey. The above research is part of my doctoral degree and ethical approval has been obtained from the Institute of Work, Health and Organisations, University of Nottingham.

Apologies for not including this information in the recruitment message. We hope that you would continue to support us by taking part in this survey.

Phoenix

[Finnboy]

Thank you very much for your interest in the survey. The above research is part of my doctoral degree and ethical approval has been obtained from the Institute of Work, Health and Organisations, University of Nottingham.

Even IF that is true: simply posting that wording here doesn't make your methods compliant. 

Also, why such an  evasive answer to a straightforward question? Who exactly gave ethical approval? Last time I checked the Nottingham University REC guidelines, supervisors weren't authorised to approve surveys which specifically target patients with an ongoing medical condition. Without exception, such surveys would need full scrutiny and approval from the relevant department's REC (in this case, presumably the School of Psychology and/or the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science).

If your methods were compliant, I wouldn't even need to ask these questions; because the answers would be obvious from the information that should be (but isn't) readily available for all potential participants to access before they decided whether or not to complete the survey

Also, the attempt to make what very clearly isn't an official university site look like an official University of Nottingham website isn't very convincing either.

Whilst I have no doubt that your "Investigation of online support and its effect on quality of life among HIV+ individuals" has been approved as a PhD topic, in Health & Clinical Psychology, by the Institute of Work, Health and Organisations - and is indeed supervised by Dr Neil Coulson - I am far from convinced that your methods of research are approved, proper and ethical. 

I wouldn't touch this with the proverbial 40ft bargepole.

[phoenixmo]

Dear Finnboy,

Thank you very much for your concern.

All research carried out by research staff and students within the Institute of Work, Health and Organisations must meet the ethical criteria laid down by the British Psychological Society and further defined in the Ethics Committee Guidelines set by the Institute. Ethical considerations for the above study are overseen and approved by the Ethics Committee of The Institute. For further information about the Ethics Committee and ethical consideration of the above study, please feel free to contact Dr. Nigel Hunt at nigel.hunt@nottingham.ac.uk, chair of the Ethics Committee of the Institute.

Some members who have completed our last study raised the concern that hosting the survey to surveymonkey.com might not be secure and professional enough. Therefore, in the present study we subscribed an own domain and developed our own online survey. We intended to make the survey outlook as simple and clear as possible. Nevertheless, we had no intention to make the survey look like an official university site.

Should you have any enquiries, please feel free to contact me at lwxkhm1@nottingham.ac.uk. Thank you very much again and I wish you every success.

Phoenix

[phoenixmo]

Dear members,

My name is Phoenix and I am a doctoral candidate at Institute of Work, Health and Organisation, the University of Nottingham. As part of my doctoral research I am conducting a survey which aims to explore the effects of health-related online support group use on health and quality of life for individuals living with HIV/AIDS.  I would like to invite individuals who are living with HIV/AIDS to take part in this survey.

I would like to thank those members who have already responded to the survey. However, the response rate remains less positive than expect and it would be grateful if you could kindly help by participating in this important study. Your response would be very important to help us gain a better understanding of the experiences and needs of individuals living with HIV/AIDS. We intend to publish our results in relevant academic and professional journals and we hope they will serve as important tools in guiding the design and evaluation of online intervention initiatives and to improve the quality of life of individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

We anticipate that this survey would take approximately 20 minutes to complete. If you are over 18 years old and are living with HIV/AIDS, please click the link below to access the survey. Your views will be treated in strictest confidence and we will not identify you from your response. Ethical approval has been obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Institute.

http://www.onlinesupportresearch.co.uk/study3/


Should you have any enquiries, please don't hesitate to contact me at lwxkhm1@nottingham.ac.uk. Thank you very much in advance and we are looking forward to hearing from you.


Yours sincerely,
Phoenix Mo MSc
Doctoral Candidate in Health Psychology

Supervisor: Dr Neil Coulson
Associate Professor in Health Psychology