Recruiting Mental Health, Spirituality, and Psychoactive Substance Use

UofAPsychResearch

Greenlighter
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Aug 14, 2018
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Hello, my name is Kevin St. Arnaud, and I am a Ph.D. candidate in Counselling Psychology at the University of Alberta, Canada.

I would like to invite you to take part in an online study investigating the links between mental health, spirituality, and the use of psychoactive substances.

This study entails an anonymous, online survey, which uses validated, self-report scales to asses:

-Basic demographic and personality information (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, etc.)
-Mental Health (e.g., feelings about one's self and one's functioning in life etc.)
-Spirituality (e.g., religious/spiritual beliefs, spiritual experiences, etc.)
-Use/non-use parameters of various psychoactive substances (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, opioids, cannabis, psychedelics, etc.)
-Reasons for use (e.g., relaxation, creativity, socialization, entheogenic purposes, etc.)

Anyone over 18 years of age and capable of fluently reading and writing English is eligible to participate in this study, which is designed to take about 20 to 25 minutes to complete. The study is open as of August 14, 2018 and will close in roughly two to three months, or upon collection of a sufficient sample size.

This study has been approved by the Research Ethics Board at the University of Alberta. The online survey is hosted using REDCap software, which is compliant with Canadian privacy legislation, such as HIA, FOIP, and TCPS2, as well as U.S. privacy requirements, such as HIPAA. All data sent to the REDCap server is encrypted with SSL, and stored and encrypted on servers located at the University of Alberta.

If you would like to participate, or are interested in further information about the survey, please visit:

https://is.gd/drugsmentalhealthspirituality

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Kevin St. Arnaud, M.Ed., (Ph.D. Candidate)
Department of Educational Psychology
University of Alberta
 
That was interesting. Filling your survey made me realise that alcohol really is ​a shit drug.
 

This question:
How would you describe your religious/spiritual orientation?

What if someone enjoy's spirituality and religion but leans more towards spirituality? All the responses are set up as either/or situations, which doesn't really leave any space for me (as someone who's moving beyond duality ;)).

I am leaving it blank for now. I'll probably have to use the spiritual but not religious answer, even though it's not very accurate/precise. I probably do emphasize spirituality more than I do religion anyways.

Not the end of the world. Here's another issue I had:

In the past three months (90 days), how often have you used the following substances?

I take a medication that is technically a NMDAr antagonist, although I am taking it at sub-dissociative, lower dosages. Question is ambiguous as to medical use. But I haven't used any such drugs for non-medical purposes over that time period, so not sure how to answer.

Whether it's for sub-dissociative dosage medical use (daily) or non-medical use (abstinent) would make a big difference here.




Otherwise, great survey!!!
 
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I'm not religious in any sense of the word and answered thusly... irritating that it felt as if every question was tailored toward religion.
 
This question:

What if someone enjoy's spirituality and religion but leans more towards spirituality? All the responses are set up as either/or situations, which doesn't really leave any space for me (as someone who's moving beyond duality ;)).

I am leaving it blank for now. I'll probably have to use the spiritual but not religious answer, even though it's not very accurate/precise. I probably do emphasize spirituality more than I do religion anyways.

Not the end of the world. Here's another issue I had:



I take a medication that is technically a NMDAr antagonist, although I am taking it at sub-dissociative, lower dosages. Question is ambiguous as to medical use. But I haven't used any such drugs for non-medical purposes over that time period, so not sure how to answer.

Whether it's for sub-dissociative dosage medical use (daily) or non-medical use (abstinent) would make a big difference here.




Otherwise, great survey!!!


Thanks very much for the feedback. It is definitely appreciated, and will be kept in mind for future studies :) You're right that there could be more specificity; I will likely make each dimension a continuous variable in another design.

With regard to the NMDAr antagonist, you noted that that you haven't used any such drugs for non-medical purposes over that time period. As such, this usage would not be reported, as the survey is only looking at drug usage that could be considered "non-medical."

I'm not religious in any sense of the word and answered thusly... irritating that it felt as if every question was tailored toward religion.

Thank you for the feedback! I can definitely see how the questions would be irritating; it sounds like you answered accordingly :)
 
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Perfect survey, except two things.

The people who took the survey aren't well categorized, there's so much difference between the illegal drugs out there. I wanted to see the results of a survey like this one, but how the people taking opiates, stimulants, psychedelics and .etc, vary because they're so different.

Also questions which will determinate how the people were before and after they've started using substances, that's because some people are predisposed to find something attractive in substance A, because they're X and Y, and vise-versa/or because taking X and Y they tend to be like A.
 
I took part in it. It was a nice survey, however, there were some religion specific questions that, for a moment, I thought it's more directed to explore the nature of religiousness/spirituality rather than substance use, in a hidden way.
Otherwise, it was nice, I think.
 
Hello, my name is Kevin St. Arnaud, and I am a Ph.D. candidate in Counselling Psychology at the University of Alberta, Canada.

I would like to invite you to take part in an online study investigating the links between mental health, spirituality, and the use of psychoactive substances.

This study entails an anonymous, online survey, which uses validated, self-report scales to asses:

-Basic demographic and personality information (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, etc.)
-Mental Health (e.g., feelings about one's self and one's functioning in life etc.)
-Spirituality (e.g., religious/spiritual beliefs, spiritual experiences, etc.)
-Use/non-use parameters of various psychoactive substances (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, opioids, cannabis, psychedelics, etc.)
-Reasons for use (e.g., relaxation, creativity, socialization, entheogenic purposes, etc.)

Anyone over 18 years of age and capable of fluently reading and writing English is eligible to participate in this study, which is designed to take about 20 to 25 minutes to complete. The study is open as of August 14, 2018 and will close in roughly two to three months, or upon collection of a sufficient sample size.

This study has been approved by the Research Ethics Board at the University of Alberta. The online survey is hosted using REDCap software, which is compliant with Canadian privacy legislation, such as HIA, FOIP, and TCPS2, as well as U.S. privacy requirements, such as HIPAA. All data sent to the REDCap server is encrypted with SSL, and stored and encrypted on servers located at the University of Alberta.

If you would like to participate, or are interested in further information about the survey, please visit:

https://is.gd/drugsmentalhealthspirituality

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Kevin St. Arnaud, M.Ed., (Ph.D. Candidate)
Department of Educational Psychology
University of Alberta

Interesting. Religion, I think when you've experienced enough of life, you/I realise, it's man made with everyone insisting their's is the only path to God, or the higher power. Total garbage. Spirituality.....well, that's a hard one for most people to grasp, in my experience. When thing's are going fine, there's no need for it, unless you hit the nadir, and lost what you never thought possible. As for medicines....I'm prescribed a couple that can be "abused", or rather, taken in different doses and for different uses, other than what the doc's intended. As for using drugs to find the "meaning" of life.....well, if you've had to do that, you're already fucked. just my own opinion. Good luck with the viva voce
 
I took part in it. It was a nice survey, however, there were some religion specific questions that, for a moment, I thought it's more directed to explore the nature of religiousness/spirituality rather than substance use, in a hidden way.
Otherwise, it was nice, I think.

There's a difference?
 
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