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Participant information sheet

Here is the information about the project, if you have questions please contact me.

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET FOR YOUNG PEOPLE:

Lived Experience of Young People Who Have Made a Suicide Attempt – how suicidal feelings are communicated and heard

Who is conducting the research?

My name is Laura Patterson, I am a postgraduate student in the School of HWSC at the Open University in Milton Keynes, studying for my PhD. As part of my studies, I am conducting the research described below. I am also a social worker and run a Wellbeing Café in the town where I live. My supervisor is Sharon Mallon who is overseeing my research. Contact details for us both are at the end of this sheet.

Invitation to participate

You are being invited to participate in a research study. We are inviting people to participate if you are aged 16-25 years, of any gender or none, and have made one or more serious suicide attempts in the past. It is really important that at least a year has passed since your last suicide attempt to minimise the risk to your emotional health. This research recognises your own knowledge and expertise as someone who has lived through this experience and offers space for you to talk about those experiences. In taking part in this research, you and your experiences will not be judged in any way, and you will be treated with respect.

Before you decide whether or not to take part, it is important for you to understand why the research is being done an what it will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully.

What is the research?

This research will explore how young people communicate suicidal thoughts and feelings to others around them leading up to a suicide attempt. This is so we can understand more about how and when those feelings may, or may not, have been communicated and also to understand how someone might, or might not, have heard and understood that communication. By asking you about your lived experience, I hope that more families and professionals will be able to recognise and act on that communication, in the right way and at the right time.

This work has been reviewed by, and received a favourable opinion, from the OU Human Research Ethics Committee - HREC reference number: HREC/4030/Patterson. It also follows the standard of research ethics set out by the British Psychological Society.

What would participation involve?

Participation is entirely voluntary. If you would like to take part, you will be offered an initial chat for around an hour (you can choose if that is online or in person) where we can talk through what is involved in more detail and I can answer questions. If you still want to go ahead after that, you would be invited to partake in an interview which would be digitally recorded. At the start of the interview, you would be invited to do a ‘River of Life’ exercise, which shows key points in your life to help the researcher understand a bit about you and to create an informal start to the interview. The interview questions would be very unstructured and would simply invite you to share your lived experience of communicating suicidal feelings of distress. This may take a couple of hours and again, you can choose if it is in person or online. If in person, it would either be at the Open University in Milton Keynes in a private office, or in a place where you feel comfortable doing the interview.

Your interview would be confidential, but I would need to remind you of the following information about Safeguarding at the start of the interview. “I have a duty to safeguard children and adults, and so if at any point I feel that you may present a risk to yourself or anyone else, I will need to discuss this with my supervisors. Before I do so I will let you know that I intend to do so. It may then be necessary to break your confidentiality but again this will be discussed with you prior to any action being taken”.

In our initial chat I would explain about the role of a further participant who would be someone who may or may not have heard you communicate your suicidal thoughts or feelings, and I would ask you if there was someone that you would suggest from your friends, family or a professional that you’ve worked with. The interview with that person would focus on their experience of hearing, or not hearing your communication. I would also chat with you about any ideas you have for a creative way we could share the findings of the interviews to people that are interested in preventing suicide.

Whilst there will be no financial reward for taking part, I will reimburse expenses e.g., travel expenses. It is up to you to decide whether or not to take part. If you do decide to take part you will be given this information sheet to keep and be asked to sign a consent form (if 16-18 years then a parent or guardian would be asked to sign it too). If you decide to take part you are still free to withdraw at any time and without giving a reason.

Support during and after the interview

You will be welcome to take a break during the interview(s), end your participation in the study or postpone your interview. My supervisor will be available to talk to you if necessary. At the end of the interview, I will check how you are feeling and identify what support you have around you in case you need to talk with someone. Whether needed at that stage or not, I will provide you with a list of services that can provide ongoing support that you can take away with you.

You may also wish to have a follow up phone call on week after the last interview. This allows time for further reflection and to check that you have the support that you need.

How will my information be used?

All personal contact details (name, telephone number, email address, postal address if needed) and consent forms will be stored securely on an Open University network drive in a password protected file and destroyed as soon as no further contact with you is needed.
Digital recordings of interviews will be kept securely on an Open University network drive in a password protected file and after transcription, will be deleted. Transcriptions will also be kept securely, using pseudonyms for identification. These will be deleted at the end of the project, which is 2027 at the latest, or if you decide to stop participating in the project, whichever is sooner.
Any creative projects that come out of the narrative interviews will be fully non-identifiable.
I will be analysing and writing up the project in a thesis, producing academic articles, sharing findings on social media and attending conferences. These will all use your chosen pseudonyms and be non-identifying. The thesis and any academic articles will be available online.
Participants will be welcome to read the thesis, extracts of it or read a one-page summary of findings.
As this research is sensitive in nature, data will not be available on any archive or available for re-use.

What if I want to withdraw?

You have the right to withdraw from the study at any time during your participation by emailing laura.patterson@open.ac.uk.without explanation, disadvantage or consequence. You have the right to ask for your data to be removed after your participation in the study by contacting the researcher on the above email up until 4 weeks after your interview. Before that time I will fully remove any materials you have contributed, however, after four weeks, I would reserve the right to use any anonymised material you contributed as it will have been used already for some analysis.

How do I agree to take part?

If you would like to be part of this research study, please comment on social media, send a private message, or email laura.patterson@open.ac.uk. I will then send a consent form for completion, either by email or post.

Thank you

I would like to thank you for taking time to read this information sheet.

Contact Details

If you would like further information about my research or would like to raise any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me, Laura Patterson, on laura.patterson@open.ac.uk.

Equally, if you have any questions or concerns about how the research has been conducted please contact my research supervisor Dr Sharon Mallon in HWSC, The Open University, on sharon.mallon@open.ac.uk