Thank you for your interest in being part of the P3 Study.

Before you decide whether or not to join, it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what participation will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully and discuss it with others if you wish. Email us if there is anything that is not clear or if you would like more information. Take your time to decide whether or not you wish to take part.

You can always refer back to this page for information and, if you do take part in the study, you will be emailed a copy of this information.

 

Who is conducting this research?

This research is conducted by Dr Jennifer Hall, Dr Geraldine Barrett and Prof. Judith Stephenson from University College London, with Dr Corinne Rocca of University of California, San Francisco.

 

What is the project’s purpose?

Our research aims to help women have babies by choice, not by chance, to avoid unwanted pregnancies, to attain the best health they can before becoming pregnant, and to prevent poor pregnancy outcomes, such as low birth weight babies. For most women, there are times in their life when they want to avoid pregnancy, and times when they want to have a baby, and times when their feelings are mixed. When they want to get pregnant, there are some things that women and men can do to improve their health and the chances of a healthy pregnancy. But not everyone knows about this and it can be hard to get the right advice at the right time. When they do not want to get pregnant, women need help to choose the method of contraception that suits them best, else they are at risk of having an unplanned pregnancy.

In this research we are interested in testing some questions about women’s feelings and preferences regarding a future pregnancy. These questions have been developed in America, and we want to make sure that they work in the United Kingdom. To do this we will be asking 1000 women to complete our online survey. We’ll be following them up several times over one year, asking them to complete the survey again, so that we can see how their preferences change over time and whether the questions can help us identify who does and does not go on to become pregnant. If these questions work, ultimately they will be used to help doctors and nurses to identify which women and their partners need advice about contraception, and which need advice about getting ready for pregnancy.

 

Am I eligible?

If you a woman aged 15 or over, are not currently pregnant, have not gone through the menopause or been sterilised and are able to read and speak English, you may be eligible for this study. We will take you through a screening process at the start of the online survey to see whether you are eligible.

 

Do I have to take part?

It is up to you to decide whether or not to take part. If you do decide to take part you will be emailed this information sheet to keep when you finish or end the survey. You will be asked to complete a consent form as part of the online survey. You can withdraw at any time without giving a reason and without it affecting any benefits that you are entitled to. If you wish to withdraw please contact the research team on P3-Study@ucl.ac.uk. If you decide to withdraw your data will be anonymised and we will not contact you again.

 

What will happen to me if I take part?

If you agree to take part you will complete the online survey now, which should take about 10 minutes. All the questions on the survey are optional, that means you don’t have to answer them if you don’t want to, expect for the questions that are checking whether you are eligible for the study. We will email you again in 3, 6, 9 and 12 months to ask you to complete a very similar survey, which again will take around 10 minutes each. You may also be invited to complete a much shorter set of questions two weeks after completing the first one, this should take less than 5 minutes.

For every survey you complete you will receive a £5 Amazon voucher.

If you agree to be contacted, we may invite you to take part in a one to one interview about how you found these questions. If you are contacted we will provide you with more information about the content and purpose of this interview. You will be completely free to decide whether or not to take part in the interview, and will be able to carry on in the survey research regardless of what you decide about the interview.

 

What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part?

We do not anticipate that any harm will come to you through your participation in this research. However, it is possible that feelings of regret or distress might be provoked by some of the questions about pregnancy. If this occurs you can stop completing the survey and return to it later, or you can choose not to complete the survey. If you would like to talk to someone about the feelings generated by these questions please look at the ‘Useful Links’ page to find a suitable source of support, or contact the research team on P3-Study@ucl.ac.uk who will provide you with the contact details of relevant organisations.

 

What are the possible benefits of taking part?

Although there are no direct benefits to yourself of taking part in this research, your participation will be an important contribution to work that will help us to understand more about different women’s thoughts and feelings about pregnancy. This, together with other research, will be used to plan how health care professionals can better assess and meet women’s needs. The hope is that this information can ultimately be used to reduce unplanned pregnancies and to support women and their partners when they would like to get pregnancy. If you would like to see the results, please contact the research team on P3-Study@ucl.ac.uk.

 

What if something goes wrong?

In the unlikely event that something goes wrong, please contact the study team on P3-Study@ucl.ac.uk in the first instance. If, after this, you feel your complaint has not been handled to your satisfaction, please contact the Chair of the UCL Research Ethics Committee on ethics@ucl.ac.uk.

 

Will my taking part in this project be kept confidential?

All the information that we collect about you during the course of the research will be kept strictly confidential. All data will be collected and stored in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations (2018) in the ‘Data Safe Haven’ at UCL.

The answers on the online survey will only be used by members of the researcher team, which may include sharing anonymised data with our collaborator at the University of California, San Francisco, as part of the analysis. Although we are asking for your email address, this is only for the purposes of inviting you to complete the follow-up surveys, so no one will know how you answered the questions. Your email address will be stored separately from your answers to the survey.

 

What will happen to the results of the research project?

We aim to publish the results of this research in journals, reports and online, as well as presenting it at relevant conferences. You will not be able to be identified in any ensuing reports or publications. We expect that the results of the research will be available during 2021 with the final report in 2022. In the meantime, we will publish updates on the study website and you are welcome to contact the research team for an update at any time on P3-Study@ucl.ac.uk.

For the life of the project, data will be stored in the UCL Data Safe Haven. At the end of the project, data will be anonymised, archived and stored for a minimum of 10 years, as per UCL policy and funder requirements. These completely anonymous data may be used by students or other academics for additional or subsequent relevant research at the discretion of the research team.

 

Who is funding the research?

This study is funded by the National Institute for Health Research, reference number PDF-2017-10-021