Stigma by Association in Mental Health Nursing, Version 1.3: Survey

Invitation and brief summary
We invite you to participate in a research project about experiences of mental health-related stigma and discrimination in mental health nursing. Everyone who has studied or worked within mental health nursing in Scotland are invited to take part. You do not need to be currently working in or studying mental health nursing to participate, so long as you have previously worked in or studied mental health nursing in Scotland.

What is the research about?

Scotland is facing a critical shortage of mental health nurses. The past decade has brought a sharp UK-wide fall in the number of mental health nurses and for the past two years, Scottish universities have been unable to fill places on mental health nursing courses. This new research seeks to explore some of the reasons for this, looking in particular at stigma surrounding mental health.

We often think of mental health stigma – a result of the negative attitudes or beliefs based on a preconception, misunderstanding or fear of mental health – as only affecting people living with mental health conditions, but it can impact other people too, including people who work with those with experience of mental illness. Mental health nurses can experience the unfair impact of stigma, just because of the role they chose, and the people they help. We call this ‘stigma by association’. 

This research seeks to understand what this stigma looks like and explore some of the other issues faced by people who have trained or worked within mental health nursing in Scotland. We hope that this will help us to work out how to tackle stigma-related issues, and make real changes to workforce health and wellbeing, retention and recruitment, and positive patient outcomes. 

This survey is part of a research project being carried out by See Me, the Mental Health Foundation, Abertay University and NHS Scotland. The research is being managed and conducted jointly by a team of researchers at the Mental Health Foundation and Abertay University. The research team is being led by Dr Bridey Rudd, Senior Research Officer at the Mental Health Foundation and Dr Tabeth Timba-Emmanuel, lecturer in Mental Health Nursing at Abertay University.

The research has been commissioned by See Me – Scotland’s national anti-stigma programme, and is funded by the Scottish Government. See Me programme in Scotland is at the forefront of international efforts to eliminate mental health stigma and discrimination. The programme aims to equip individuals, communities, practitioners, and organisations with the necessary language, skills, and confidence to talk about mental health and to take action to tackle stigma and discrimination.

Do I have to take part?
This form has been written to help you decide if you would like to take part. Taking part is completely voluntary. It is up to you and you alone whether you wish to take part, and choosing to take part (or not take part) will not have any implications for your study or your job. If you do decide to take part, you will be free to withdraw at any time up until you submit the survey without providing a reason and without penalty.

Please take at least 24 hours to read the following information carefully and discuss it with others if you wish, before deciding whether or not to take part in this study. Please contact the study team using the details below if you have any questions or would like more information.

What would taking part involve?
If you are interested in taking part, you will first be asked to give your consent to take part in the survey. If you choose to take part, you will then be directed to a short survey which should take no longer than 20 minutes to complete. First, you will be asked to complete some anonymous questions about you and your mental health nursing background. This information will help us to better understand which demographic groups are represented by the survey findings, and identify groups that we have not heard from. This section will also help to direct you to the questions within the survey which will be most relevant for you. The rest of the survey will consist of a series of questions about your experiences of mental health nursing or mental health nursing training, and any experiences of stigma related to this that you may have had.

Can I pause or stop my participation?

If you choose to complete the survey, you will have the option of saving each section as you go. This means that you do not have to complete the whole survey at once – you can complete it over a number of sessions depending on how much time you have or for other reasons important to you.

You will be able to stop your participation in the survey at any time up until you submit your responses. To withdraw from the research, close the internet browser that you used to open the survey. When the survey closes, we will presume that anyone who has partially completed the survey has withdrawn from the research and when we reach the data analysis phase, will delete all responses where survey completion is halted part-way through. Once you have completed and submitted the survey, we will not be able to remove your data, as it will be anonymous and we will not be able to identify which survey response is yours.

What are the possible risks of taking part?
Whilst we hope that taking part in the study will be a positive experience, all studies involve some level of risk and inconvenience. The possible risks involved with this study are that the questions are about mental illnesses and stigma and discrimination; and you may be asked questions about experiences you might have found challenging or upsetting. The Mental Health Foundation has a clear safeguarding policy and processes in place to keep both participants and researchers safe during the research, in which all researchers involved in the study team are trained. If you take part in this online survey, and experience distress because of the content, contact information for specialist support organisations will be made available to you at the end of the survey, or by contacting the research team (contact details below).

What are the possible benefits of taking part?
We can’t promise the study will help you personally. However, the study will provide unique insights into the experiences of stigma and discrimination for people employed within and/or studying mental health nursing in Scotland. The findings of this study will be used by See Me and NHS Scotland to develop and trial interventions to reduce stigma by association and its impact on the mental health nursing workforce across Scotland.

How will you handle my data?
Your data will be stored in an anonymised form and will  only be accessible to named members of the research team at the Mental Health Foundation and Abertay University (see contact details below). This means that we will not ask you for any identifying information within the survey, and nobody including the researchers could reasonably identify you within the data. Your data will be stored in a secure, private page on the Mental Health Foundation’s Share Point, with data fully anonymised at the point of collection. Your responses are treated in the strictest confidence - it will be impossible to identify individuals within a dataset when any of the research is disseminated within the wider project team or publicly (e.g., in publications/presentations). The Mental Health Foundation acts as Data Controller (alance@mentalhealth.org.uk).

Retention of research data
Researchers are obliged to retain research data for up to 10 years’ post-publication, however your anonymised research data may be retained indefinitely (e.g., so that researchers engage in open practice and other researchers can access their data to confirm the conclusions of published work). Consistent with our data retention policy, researchers retain consent forms for as long as we continue to hold information about a data subject and for 10 years for published research (including Research Degree thesis).

Contact Details
If you have any questions about the study, please contact:
Dr Bridey Rudd
brudd@mentalhealth.org.uk
The Mental Health Foundation, 2nd Floor, Moncrieff House,69 West Nile Street, Glasgow G12QB

Dr Tabeth Timba-Emmanuel
t.timba-emmanuel@abertay.ac.uk

If you are concerned about your participation in the survey and would like to speak with someone about the research outwith the study team, please contact:
Julie Cameron, Assistant Director, Mental Health Foundation: jcameron@mentalhealth.org.uk

If you feel you need any support after filling out the survey, or are concerned about your own mental health or the mental health of someone close to you, please contact your GP for further information and signposting. If you feel you would like to talk to someone anonymously, a list of telephone numbers and websites are detailed below, where you can receive support: 
 
Samaritans – 116 123 (24 hours); email Jo@samaritans.org ; www.samaritans.org  
Breathing Space –   0800 83 85 87 (Mon-Thurs 6pm – 2am; Fri 6pm – Mon 6am); www.breathingspace.scot  
NHS 24 – 111 ; www.nhs24.scot (24 hours)
Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH) – 0344 800 0550 (Mon-Fri 9am -6pm); www.samh.org.uk