Invitation to Participate:
Gabriela Pantoja, a graduate student in the Master of Public Health program at California State University, San Marcos is conducting a study on birth outcomes related to maternal depression in pregnant women over the age of 18 and invites you to participate.
Study Purpose:
The purpose of this study is to collect data from expecting mothers on their emotions, feelings and wellbeing and how these factors may affect birth outcomes of their offspring. During pregnancy there is a range of emotions experienced and prevalence of these emotions may be long term. Therefore, the study aims to observe offspring birth outcomes with emotional wellbeing of the expecting mother. The title of the study is “Emotional Wellbeing During Pregnancy and its Effects on Offspring Birth Outcomes”. You are being asked to participate in the study because you are pregnant and have a likelihood of experiencing emotional changes during your pregnancy.
Number of Participants:
The number of participants is estimated to be 350.
Procedures for the Study:
There are two questionnaires as part of the study. The two questionnaires ask questions about demographics followed by questions regarding depression during pregnancy. The follow-up questionnaire will ask questions regarding birth outcomes of newborn including gestational age, birth weight, birth length, and head circumference. The follow-up questionnaire will be sent out the following month to the email address provided by the participant in the initial questionnaire. The follow-up questionnaire will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.
Risks and Inconveniences:
The questions may make you feel uncomfortable.
The questionnaire is approximately 15-20 minutes long.
Safeguards:
In order to minimize risk such as feeling uncomfortable with the questions being asked or the length of the survey, you can choose to skip any question and at any time discontinue the study and exit from the questionnaire or simply not choose to participate at all.
Confidentiality:
The data collected in this study is confidential and any connection between participants and results is not shared in any way. The contact information collected are names, phone numbers, email address, and alternate contact information. A code sheet will be created in order to maintain all contact information obtained from the participant confidential. The code sheet will include a randomly assigned ID number given to each participant when the survey is submitted in order to link the contact information given from each participant. No names of participants will be used in the research and presentation of the data collected. Once the data has been entered into an electronic database program the original questionnaire will be destroyed and after the data from the follow-up survey is collected and entered all information linking the electronic data to the original questionnaires will be destroyed. The data will be stored for a period of 7 months and then all electronic data will be completed destroyed. The organizations involved in this study include California State University San Marcos. The study requires your permission to collect any data which is not obligatory, and you may choose not to participate in the study before engaging in the study or during.
Voluntary Participation:
You are being asked to participate in this study because you are pregnant and may be at risk of or afflicted by maternal depression. However, it is your right whether or not to participate in the study as this study is completely voluntary. The study does not cost you anything and you may discontinue the questionnaire at any moment.
