Thank you for participating in our survey. Your feedback is important.
You are invited to complete an anonymous survey by a Walden University student working toward a doctoral degree.

Study title: A Correlational Study of Neurofeedback Parameters and Symptom Severity of Children with DevelopmentalTrauma

Doctoral student name: Hannah Maffia

Doctoral student contact information: hannah.maffia@waldenu.edu; 720-254-7766

Number of volunteers needed: 90

Number of minutes needed for survey: 15 minutes

Volunteers must be:
  • Over 18 years of age
  • Parents or caregivers
  • Have children who have experienced a traumatic event
  • Have children who have had at least one neurofeedback session

Study Purpose and Benefits:
This study is seeking to identify the relationship between different factors within neurofeedback training and trauma symptom severity of children, as reported by parents and caregivers. These factors may include the number of sessions received and the training length.

This study offers no direct benefits to individual volunteers. Its purpose is to benefit society by identifying a potential way to support children with trauma. Neurofeedback remains an experimental therapy tool due to gaps in the literature and research. This study seeks to address a few of these gaps regarding the duration of training and the number of sessions, in connection with the severity of trauma symptoms in children. Once the analysis is complete, the researcher will share the overall results by publishing the completed study through Walden University.
Your role:
  • can end any time you wish
    • *If you were referred through a neurofeedback organization, please know that stopping at any time will not negatively impact you or your child’s care.
  • involves no more risk than daily life
  • involves no payment

Privacy:
To protect your privacy, the doctoral student will not collect, track, or store your identity or contact info.

In place of a consent signature, your completion of the survey would indicate that you consent to your responses being analyzed in the study.

Data will be kept secure by using password-protected devices and platforms. Data will be kept for a period of at least 5 years, as required by the university.

Hannah Maffia (the researcher) is a mandated reporter for the state of Colorado. This means that your privacy is protected, but the researcher is legally obligated to break confidentiality if there is reported or suspected abuse or neglect of a child.

The researcher is a manager at AllNeuro Pathways, a neurofeedback clinic. You may know her from this setting, but this study is separate from that role and is not associated with AllNeuro Pathways.

Potential Risks:
Participation in this survey may bring up memories or uncomfortable feelings related to the subject of trauma.

The survey consists of questions that ask about your child’s traumatic experiences. This includes topics of assault, abuse, neglect or witnessing violence. The Child and Adolescent Trauma Screen (CATS) includes questions in “yes”/”no” format and on a Likert scale, which means that it ranges from “0: never happens” to “3: almost always”. These are some example items:

Mark YES if it happened to the child to the best of your knowledge. Mark NO if it didn’t happen:
(1) slapped, punched, or beat up in your family (Y/N)
(2) someone close to the child dying suddenly or violently (Y/N)

Mark 0, 1, 2, or 3 for how often the following things have bothered the child in the last two weeks:
(1) Trying not to remember, think about, or have feelings about a stressful event. (0, 1, 2, 3)
(2) Acting, playing or feeling as if a stressful event is happening right now. (0, 1, 2, 3)

This is a voluntary survey, and you can end the survey or stop participation at any time.

If you need further mental health support, below are the local and national resources:
Call or text 988, or visit https://www.988colorado.com
National support: https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help
You may also visit a local crisis center: Walk-In Crisis Center
Use of your responses:
Your survey responses will be used for academic research purposes only. Once the doctoral student graduates, the study’s results will be posted online in Scholarworks (a searchable publication of Walden University research).

Protecting You:
If you want to talk privately about your rights as a participant or any negative parts of the study, you can call Walden University’s Research Participant Advocate at 612-312-1210 or email IRB@mail.waldenu.edu. Walden University’s approval number for this study is IRB will enter approval number here and it expires on IRB will enter expiration date.

You might wish to retain this consent form for your records. You may ask the doctoral student or Walden University for a copy at any time using the contact info above.

If you have any questions before continuing, please reach out via email to hannah.maffia@waldenu.edu. You are encouraged to take as much time as you need, review all details, and have your questions answered before making a decision to proceed.

If you feel you understand the study and wish to volunteer, please indicate your consent by clicking ‘continue’ to fill out the inclusion criteria form and complete the survey.

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