Factors leading to Loneliness among middle-aged individuals
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Factors leading to Loneliness among middle-aged individuals
1. Please enter the full title of your study:
Factors leading to Loneliness among middle-aged individuals.
2. Please enter a short title for your reference:
Doctor Oliver-Taking me through the filling of an Institutional Review Board along with my research proposal.
3. Describe in lay terms the purpose of the research including the research question and what you hope to gain.
The purpose of this study is to identify what puts middle-aged adults at high risk of experiencing loneliness. The study will, therefore, be answering the following research question: What factors affect mid-aged adults' likelihood of experiencing loneliness? I hypothesize that being divorced, having lost your spouse or a close family member, experiencing physical challenges, having lost a job recently, being unemployed, or living with a terminal illness recently, will put adults at a higher risk for experiencing loneliness compared to those without these recent experiences. The results of this study will help inform the caregivers, healthcare officials, and relatives to better intervene on individuals experiencing loneliness before it advances to health disorders such as depression.
4. Describe how human subjects will be involved. If there is an intervention or interaction with subjects, describe fully what researchers and subjects will do. Describe any procedure being performed already for diagnostic or treatment purposes.
Researchers will post recruitment forms through Facebook and Twitter. The recruitment forms will bear the following statement: "We are looking for middle-aged adults aged between 30 years and 55 years. The researcher will recruit 200 adults and just naturally observe the occurrence of loneliness and how it correlates with the independent variables such as divorce, loss of their spouses, or close family members, the physical challenges, unemployment, or terminal illness.
5. State who will be conducting each of the procedures detailed above. If there are multiple procedures or populations, be sure to state who will be conducting each procedure or working with each population.
My team of five assistants and I will post the recruitment forms through Facebook and Twitter. The response will be open to all regardless of whether they have experienced loneliness or not in the past. Those who will consider themselves eligible to participate in this study will click a particular link. The researcher will use a loneliness multi-item scale as a measure of loneliness that will link emotions with loneliness. My participants will conduct equal tasks of sorting out the eligible participants while I oversee the entire process.
6. Will the study involve deception or concealment of any information?
Yes. The study will involve necessary deception to allow the participants not to shy from disclosing some necessary information. For example, although the recruitment will be accessible to all the interested applicants the forms will not indicate that only 200 participants aged 30 and 55 years will be considered for the study. This will ensure the participants turn up in large numbers and will be honest with their ages.
7. Are any vulnerable populations included in your research? Indicate which of the following populations will be included in the research: pregnant women, human fetuses and neonates, prisoners, children, cognitively impaired persons, students and employees, minorities, economically and/or educationally disadvantaged, AIDS/HIV+ subjects, terminally ill subjects.
Yes. My research will include a vulnerable population since it is open to all. Although the study has a limiting age bracket, there may be pregnant women, human fetuses and neonates, prisoners, cognitively impaired persons, students and employees, minorities, economically and/or educationally disadvantaged, AIDS/HIV+ subjects, terminally ill subjects within the age bracket who may be eligible to participate in the research. The questionnaires will capture such details regarding their vulnerability. However, the study will not involve children since the participant must be aged between 30 and 55 years
8. Describe steps that will be taken to ensure additional protection of the rights of any vulnerable populations indicated above.
After collecting the primary data from the questionnaires, the researcher will transfer the data to a different location and use codes or identifiers to conceal personal information that may be used to identify the participant during the research.
9. Will participants be recruited by or involved in research with their own (current) supervisor or a teacher? If so, how will perceived coercion be handled?
Since recruitment is online, there will be no direct interaction with the supervisor. Therefore, the authority of the researcher may not in any way coarse the participant. The eligible participant will receive only a $25 Best Buy gift card for their time after the study. The value of the card is therefore not too high to the cause uninterested individuals to participate in the study.
10. Will enrollment be limited to a specific ethnic, social, or gender group? If so, describe and justify it. No.
No. the enrollment will be open to all because the researcher wants to collect information across all ethnic, social and gender boundaries.
11. Total Number of Subjects
The total number of subjects is 200
12. Justification for the number of subjects
The researcher opted to involve only 200 participants because the number is not too big for a team of 6 researchers to handle. Additionally, the number is enough to cater to the participants who may fall out before the research is complete.
13. Please list the anticipated age range of subjects to be enrolled in this study.
The study is targeting participants aged between 30 and 55 years
14. What is the time commitment for each participant? If you are using multiple populations, provide the time commitment required for participating in each population.
The participants will be required to electronically submit the completed questionnaires within 2 months. However, the questionnaires will take the participants between 25 minutes and 55 minutes to fill.
15. Describe where the procedures will take place. If you are conducting multiple procedures or using multiple populations, be sure to describe where each interaction will take place. Describe the location including how privacy will be maintained while conducting procedures.
Since all the information is being electronically submitted all the procedures for the participants and the researcher will take place at the comfort of their respective homes or offices with the help of electronic devices. That implies confidentiality will be high. The researcher will relocate the primary information collected from the participants to a different location using codes and identifiers to maximize privacy.
16. Federal regulations require that you include minors (e.g., participants aged 0 -17) in your research unless you can justify their exclusion. Are you including minors? If not, justify specific to this study in the text box.
No. Although minors may fill out the questionnaires and apply for participation in the study the researcher will exclude them using the age limit that has been set as between 30 and 55 years.
17. Federal regulations require that you include minorities (i.e., minority ethnic, racial, gender groups, etc.) in your research unless you can justify their exclusion. Are you including minorities? If not, describe and justify specific to this study.
Yes. My study is open to minorities that may be interested in participating. These may be along with ethnicity, racial, and gender groups as the case may be.
18. Describe in detail the recruitment plan. Who will be recruited and how? (i.e., will the study use a subject pool, announcements, recruitment ads, word of mouth, email, etc.?) If materials such as flyers, emails, advertisements, screenshots from websites, or any other recruitment material are used, it must be uploaded with this application.
The researcher will recruit 100 men and 100 women through Twitter and Facebook. The eligible participants will be aged between 30 years and 55 years and open to different social, regional, occupational, religious, and economic groups. The recruited men and women will have experienced different levels of loneliness in the past. The exclusion criteria for the study will be any age outside the 30 years to 55 years of the bracket. The study will require a loneliness multi-item scale as a measure of loneliness which involves linking emotions with loneliness. Another measure of loneliness will require the participant to fill a questionnaire about their effectiveness in performing daily tasks. There will be an additional questionnaire for the participants to gather information on all the independent variables such as gender, marital status, and loss of a loved one. Completion of the questionnaires will require the participant to have access to a laptop or a smartphone, a Facebook or Twitter account to access the questionnaire as well as electronically submit the completed forms.
19. Describe the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
The exclusion criteria for the study will be any age outside the 30 years to 55 years of the bracket.
20. Will subjects be compensated or incur any costs for their participation? If so, provide details of the compensation. Compensation might include money, gifts, food, class credit, or extra credit provided for participation. Any costs to subjects that may result from participation in the research should also be described. Detail what compensation participants will be given if they do not complete the study.
The subjects will have to incur a little cost for their participation for instance in accessing the internet and electricity. For that reason, the researcher will award the participants who will complete the study a $25 Best Buy gift card to meet some of the costs. However, unless one drops out of the study with a genuine reason such as accident, sickness or a reasonable emergency, such a participant will not receive any reward except a letter of appreciation acknowledging their effort.
21. Describe the benefits, if any, to the subjects and society from the proposed research. Please note: Compensation is not a benefit of participating in research.
The findings of the study will provide information which the society did not have on the causes of loneliness among middle-aged adults since the previous research which is detailed in the literature review has only addressed Depressed and Alone: The Relationship between Depression and Social Cognitive Functioning. The results of this study will help inform the caregivers, healthcare officials, and relatives to better intervene on individuals experiencing loneliness before it advances to health disorders such as depression.
22. Describe the risk or discomforts, if any, to the subjects, whether physical, psychological, or social, and the means proposed to minimize them. If subjects may become upset or require medical or psychological attention as a result of the research procedure, a means of addressing attention to these concerns should be described in this section. A subject is at risk in research if he or she may be exposed to a possibility of harm that is greater than ordinarily encountered in daily life or during routine examination or tests.
The subjects in this study may be exposed to risks and discomforts, which mostly may be psychological or social. For instance, AIDS/HIV+ subjects and terminally ill subjects may already be experiencing stigma and their exposure to this study may alleviate the stigma. In case they report such incidences, the researcher will refer them to a reliable counselor who is our associate who can provide free counseling services.
23. Will the data contain any information that could personally link the subject to the research? If yes, describe what identifying information will be collected. If participants’ identifying information will be kept separately from the data using a key or code sheet, describe the means of protecting these.
The data collected from the participants will contain identifying information such as names, emails, addresses, and cellphone contacts. However, the data will first be transferred to a separate location using a code sheet or identifiers to ensure privacy. The researcher will also have exchanged consent forms with the participants as a way of assuring the participants that the researcher will not breach any of the information they provide will not provide or expose it to a third party.