Background and aims

Researchers at the University of York are recruiting participants to take part in an online survey about how people interpret the sensations they get from their body. This data is being collected to refine a new questionnaire that asks people about their emotional reaction to sensations from the stomach that signal states such as hunger, satiation, and fullness; gastric interoceptive evaluation. This questionnaire has been developed to better understand if gastric interoceptive evaluation is a maintenance factor in eating disorders.

Recruitment process, what’s expected of participants, and format

Taking part involves completing an online survey that asks questions about the sensations people get from their body and stomach, gastric interoceptive evaluation, and their eating disorder symptoms. This whole process is expected to take up to 20 minutes. There are x4 £/€50 Amazon e-vouchers to be won in a prize draw and information on how to enter is included in the survey.

Criteria

To take part, participants must:
-Be aged 18+
-Identify as having an eating disorder (have a current diagnosis or think you have one. However, no proof of diagnosis is needed. We recognise that symptoms can be experienced without a formal diagnosis.)
-Be fluent in English
-Have not have been admitted involuntarily for eating disorder (in or outpatient) treatment in the last 6 months (this is a protective measure)

The survey can be accessed via this link, which includes the information sheet, declaration of consent, and sources of support: https://york.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cGQuWRwC1lKqcHs

Confidentiality 

Participants will not be identified in any research outputs, like publications. This is because no personal data (namely, data that could identify who you are e.g. name) is included in the analysis of the survey data,

If you enter yourself into the prize draw, we also ask for an email address we can contact you on. Your email address cannot be linked to the survey data as it is recorded in a new survey that is separate from your responses. It will only be used to contact you if you win a voucher. It is completely optional to enter the prize draw and therefore provide an email address.

In order to pay participants, we are now required to ask participants for their home address (in addition to their name and email address) to meet HMRC requirements. To be paid for this study, we therefore ask you to provide us with this information. The researcher will contact you on the email address you provide for the prize draw if this is needed. If you do not want to share this, we kindly ask you not to take part.

Your data (name, email address, and home address) will be shared with the administration team in the Department of Psychology so that they can process the payment. In line with HMRC retention requirements, these data will be kept for seven years. Your data will not be shared with others and will not be used for any other purposes. They will also be saved separately from the data collected in this study. For more information about processing of personal data, please see https://wiki.york.ac.uk/display/PsySharedDocs/Key+information+about+GDPR

Our research group is committed to open research practices, which includes sharing research data through public repositories such as the Open Science Framework. This way, your anonymised data will be shared publicly with others. Anonymised data may also be reused by the research team or other third parties for secondary research and/or teaching purposes. We will never share any personal data and the data shared will not be able to identify you. Please only take part in the study if you agree with this.

Contact information 

Researcher: lucy.stafford@york.ac.uk

Supervisor: catherine.preston@york.ac.uk