Dear Participant:

We are conducting a survey about medical bad news delivery and the communications between patient and care provider. You have been contacted because you have had a stillbirth, neonatal death (death of a child within 28 days of birth) or a pregnancy loss. We would like to express our sincere sympathy for your loss and offer our apologies if our contacting you about the death of your child brings up painful memories of your experience. We have attached information about existing resources, should you want to contact someone for support.

If you feel able to share a few details about your loss, we invite you to answer the following survey questions about your experiences and opinions about when you were diagnosed with your loss. We are hoping to learn more about this kind of communication and offer insights to care-providers about the effects of these interactions. Data collected from this confidential survey will be used for completion of a course project in the master’s program at San Francisco State University.

You must be 18 years of age or older to participate. If you participate, there is a risk that you might feel some discomfort in answering these questions, but you may stop participating at any time or you may refuse to answer any question. If you do not wish to participate, you may simply return the blank survey, with no consequence to yourself.

Please do not put your name on this form. The survey should take approximately 25-30 minutes to complete.

Any questions or concerns should be directed to the principal investigators: Suzanne Pullen, at spullen@sfsu.edu or (415) 338-3158; David Nalos at davidnalos@yahoo.com. You may also contact the research advisor, Dr. Christina Sabee, at csabee@sfsu.edu.

If you would like to reach us, receive a questionnaire by regular mail or pdf, hear about the results of the study or participate in future studies, please contact us at any one of the following:

Suzanne Pullen, C/O Communication Studies, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway, San Francisco, CA 94132; spullen@sfsu.edu, 415-338-3158.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Suzanne Pullen

David Nalos