Exploring the link between body awareness, quality of relationships,
and mental health

We are looking for participants to help us with a research project exploring how awareness of our bodies is related to the quality of relationships we form and our mental health. This body awareness is also called interoception and can include awareness of different types of physical sensations such as feeling hungry, thirsty, hot, cold, and feeling your heart beating in your chest. Studies in adults have found that there might be a link between mental health and interoception as well as a link between our ability to form relationships and interoception. However, we don’t know much about these links in children and adolescents or the way that development during puberty may affect this.

To investigate this we are asking people aged 11-18 and their parent/guardian to help us with our research. We hope that doing this research might help us to identify some of the risks that might lead to mental health problems later in life and try to develop ways to prevent this from happening.

What will we be asked to do?
If you choose to take part in this study, we will ask children/adolescents to complete six questionnaires. The questionnaires will ask about their awareness of sensations in their body, their emotions and behaviours, their relationships, and the stage of puberty they are currently in. We are also asking the parents/guardians of children/adolescents who participate in the study to complete three additional questionnaires about their child.

These questionnaires are completed online and the entire study should take around 40 minutes in total (25 minutes for children/adolescents and 15 minutes for parents/guardians).

What are the risks and benefits of taking part?
There are no risks associated with taking part in the study. However, as some of the questions involve issues related to mental health, we have included the details of support services that you can contact at the end of the study in case you need someone to talk to. There are no direct benefits to taking part in the study. However, you will be contributing to research that helps us understand more about mental health which we hope will lead to finding ways to improve it.

As a token of our appreciation, we are entering all schools involved in the project into a prize draw to win an £80 book voucher, and all participants 18 and under who take part into a prize draw to win one of two £25 book vouchers.

Will my information be safe?
Participation is anonymous and confidential. Child/adolescent answers and parent/guardian’s answers will be linked to an anonymous identifying number and will only be seen by the research team.

All data will be kept in a secure, password protected electronic file. The results may be published later in an academic journal or disseminated at academic conferences. However, this will only include information of the overall results, rather than individual results, and there is no risk that you could be identified by name.

You do not have to take part in this study if you don’t want to. If you take part in the study, you can decide not to answer any question you prefer not to. You will be allowed to withdraw from the study at any point if you wish, even after you have given your consent. More detailed information about withdrawing from the study can be found in the debrief sheet at the end of the experiment. If you would like to withdraw before the end, please contact a member of the research team using the details at the bottom of this document. If you do not decide to withdraw, your personal data (such as your consent form or contact information) will be stored for a maximum of five years, at which point it will be deleted. Data which is not linked to your personal information (such as scores on questionnaires) will be indefinitely stored online on the Open Science Framework.

Researchers involved:

Alexandra Hamill: Royal Holloway, University of London (Alexandra.hamill.2018@live.rhul.ac.uk)

Supervised by Dr. Rebecca Brewer: Royal Holloway, University of London (Rebecca.Brewer@rhul.ac.uk)

DATA PROTECTION, FUNDING AND ETHICAL CLEARANCE

Royal Holloway, University of London is the sponsor for this study and is based in the UK. We will be using information from you in order to undertake this study and will act as the data controller for this study. This means that we are responsible for looking after your information and using it properly. Any data you provide during the completion of the study will be stored securely on local servers. Royal Holloway is designated as a public authority and in accordance with the Royal Holloway and Bedford New College Act 1985 and the Statutes which govern the College, we conduct research for the public benefit and in the public interest. Royal Holloway has put in place appropriate technical and organisational security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in any unauthorised way or altered or disclosed. Royal Holloway has also put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where legally required to do so. To safeguard your rights, we will use the minimum personally-identifiable information possible (i.e., the email address you provide us). The lead researcher will keep your contact details confidential and will use this information only as required (i.e., to provide a summary of the study results if requested and/or for the prize draw). The lead researcher will keep information about you and data gathered from the study for 5 years after the study has finished. Certain individuals from RHUL may look at your research records to check the accuracy of the research study. If the study is published in a relevant peer-reviewed journal, the anonymised data may be made available to third parties. The people who analyse the information will not be able to identify you. You can find out more about your rights under the GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 by visiting https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/about-us/more/governance-and-strategy/data-protection/ and if you wish to exercise your rights, please contact dataprotection@royalholloway.ac.uk. Please complete the consent form so that we know whether you agree to take part in this study.

This project is funded by the South East Network for Social Sciences (SeNSS). This study has been reviewed and approved by the College Ethics Committee at Royal Holloway, University of London. The members of the research team have been checked and cleared by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). If you are unhappy or have concerns about any aspect of the project, and do not wish to contact the research team, you can contact the Research Ethics Committee via email at ethics@rhul.ac.uk, or by phone at 01784 414930. The committee is entirely independent of the research and will respond to your concerns.