The Questionnaire: Consent And Confidentiality, The Questionnaire

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Consent and confidentiality The questionnaire The questionnaire was designed to be easily understood and was available in both English and Maltese. It took roughly thirty minutes to complete. A pilot questionnaire was completed to be sure that the questions were not difficult to understand and were easy to answer. The names of the parents and their children were not written down and the parents just needed to put the completed questionnaire in the self addressed envelope and post it, thus ensuring anonymity. Participation in the research was voluntary. Apart from the questionnaire the parents received an information letter explaining the purpose of the study and what was expected from them. The parents were asked to sign a consent form. They …show more content…

The clinician explained that where possible, consent to break that confidence would be obtained. When consent is not given, or is refused, the information may still be lawfully shared if there is justification that it is in the interest of the public for it to be shared but still consent should be sought and is the first option when possible. The parents were informed that there may be times when the researcher has to break confidentiality but that, if this happened, they would be informed why this has happened and who the researcher is going to inform. Confidentiality would only be broken if the researcher is informed of, or suspects historical, immediate or possible future harm to the child, parent, another person or clinical malpractice. None of the above reasons were detected by the clinician so there was no need to break …show more content…

If a parent appeared to become distressed during the interview then the researcher would have given them the chance to stop the interview for a few minutes or take time out to compose themselves. Participants were informed at the start of the interview that they could take time out or terminate the interview at any time. None of the participants that finished the interview seemed to be struggling. Had there been a problem the researcher would have referred them back to the appropriate clinical service for

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