An investigation of the relationship between overgeneralised disease avoidance and attitudes towards mental illness.

Invitation

You are being invited to take part in a research study. Before you decide to take part, it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what it will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully.

What is the purpose of this study?

The purpose of this study is to explore attitudes towards mental health conditions, specifically bulimia, borderline personality disorder and pedophilic disorder.

Do I have to take part?

No, it is up to you to decide whether or not to take part. If you do decide to take part, you will be asked to provide consent online. If you do decide to take part, you are still free to withdraw at any time and without giving a reason. If you decide not to take part, your data will be destroyed and not included in the analysis. You must be aged 18 years and over to participate.

Will my taking part in this study be kept confidential?

Yes, no personally identifying information will be gathered during the survey and as such your taking part in this study will be entirely confidential. Because we won’t be able to identify your answers, there is no chance of retracting your data once you click the last submit button. There will be a message alerting you once you have completed all questionnaires, asking you to confirm whether you agree to your data being used. If you wish to withdraw from the study, you must discontinue before selecting the final submit button.

What will participation involve?

You will first be asked about your age, gender identity and whether you have ever attended university. You will then be asked to read three narrative descriptions about people who have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder (bulimia, borderline personality disorder and pedophilic disorder). For clarity, bulimia is an eating disorder and pedophilic disorder involves a sexual interest in pre-adolescent children. After each description, you will be asked to rate how you feel about them in a series of questions. Lastly, you will be asked to fill out a perceived vulnerability to disease questionnaire, which measures how susceptible you believe you are to infectious illness and a disgust sensitivity scale (relating to pathogen, moral and sexual disgust statements). If you feel that you will be made uncomfortable or upset by any of these tasks, please exit the study now.

We anticipate that participation will last approximately 20 minutes. We hope that you will find taking part in our research to be a worthwhile activity. We consider your views extremely valuable to us.

What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part in the study?

There are no anticipated disadvantages in taking part. However, if you feel that you may be unduly affected by either the items related to mental health conditions (bulimia, borderline personality disorder or pedophilic disorder), the items relating to vulnerability to disease or the items related to pathogen, moral or sexual disgust, please discontinue your participation.

What will happen to the results of the research study?

Your data is entirely anonymous and unidentifiable and will be gathered using GDPR compliant software and stored on a secure server. Data, without any personal identifying information, may be made publicly available in an online database for re-analysis by other researchers. Anonymous results of this study will be presented in student research reports and may also be presented at conferences or published in journals, books, and the popular media. If you would like a summary of the results, this can be made available to you upon request from the researchers.

All data and results will be anonymous, kept confidential, and securely stored at all times. All data collected will be kept on a password protected computer with an encrypted hard drive for the duration of the project. This research is being conducted as part of a student research project. This research is conducted in accordance with the British Psychological Society's Code of Ethics and Conduct.

Who can I contact if I want more information? If you would like more information on the study, please contact the student researchers: Emma Morris (2463176M@student.gla.ac.uk) and Kelly Mcguckien (2382834M@student.gla.ac.uk)

Or their project supervisor: Dr Eugene Dawydiak (Eugene.Dawydiak@glasgow.ac.uk)

Please click the button below to begin the study

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