DATA COLLECTION
The study aims to tackle inequalities and discrimination experiences in health services.
We are recruiting healthcare practitioners who have at least 12 months’ experience of working or training in a healthcare setting, aged 18 years or older.
The survey includes questions regarding work environment, experiences of unfair treatment and discrimination, and in particular how any unfair treatment may impact on participants’ current mental health and physical health and use of health services. Sociodemographic information will also be collected.
Data collection for the study will be completed using an online survey tool and through interviews and interactions with selected participants.
DATA STORAGE AND PROCESSING
Data will be downloaded to a secure, networked folder at King’s College that will only be accessible to TIDES team members. Data for analysis will be disseminated in an anonymised format and any identifiable data (names, email addresses, telephone numbers) will be recorded separately, and stored in a different location on a secure King’s College server.
Once data collection is complete, it will be analysed using STATA 15 and NVivo 11 and key findings will be written up for publication in academic journals in an anonymised format.
Findings from the survey will ultimately contribute to the development of future policies and improvements to health services that will benefit both HCPs and people in the community.
PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA
Only the TIDES team will be able to access the personal details of study participants. All the study responses will be key-coded and stored separately from personal data. Participants will not be identifiable in any research outcomes (e.g. publications).
Interview transcripts will be anonymised, and in report writing, quotes will be modified to ensure that individuals cannot be identified. Personal information such as names and addresses will be removed, as well as any other distinctive event or combination of descriptions that could make someone recognisable.
All information collected will be handled with care and in compliance with the Data Protection Act (1998), the General Data Protection Regulation (2018), and the University’s Research Data Management Policy.
The TIDES study’s legal basis for processing personal data under GDPR is Function of a public task (by a public organisation).
USING DATA FOR FUTURE RESEARCH - PARTICIPANT NOTICE
DATA SHARING
Participants will be asked for consent to be re-contacted about participation in future research projects. If they agree, their personal may be retrieved and they may be re-contacted by the TIDES team or other researchers at King’s College London. This decision will not affect their participation in the current study.
Only in cases where a participant discloses something which may place them at severe risk (such as suicidal thoughts and ideas) will confidentiality be breached. In this case the participant will be signposted to relevant services by the study team, but may also be contacted by a TIDES-affiliated mental health expert and/or their GP may be contacted. The participant is made aware of this as part of the consenting process.
Participants will receive a final summary report of the study findings shortly after all the data has been collected. Nothing identifiable will be included in the report.
In future, a dataset created from responses to the survey will be anonymised and may be accessed by other researchers if they submit an application and are approved by the TIDES steering committee.
PARTICIPANT CONSENT AND RIGHTS
Explicit consent for processing personal data is obtained from participants before they take part in the study.
If the participant no longer wants to take part in the study, they can withdraw any information that has been provided in the survey or in-depth interview, given it is within one month after completing the study. However, given the nature of focus group discussions, any information the participants discloses during the discussion cannot be withdrawn.
Participants have the right to ask for a copy of the information held about them and to have any inaccuracies corrected. Requests for withdrawal and information should be directed at tides@kcl.ac.uk.
If there are concerns about data handling, these can be raised with the TIDES team at any time, or with the KCL Data Protection Office (see below).
CONTACT DETAILS
The TIDES study is being conducted by researchers from King’s College London and is funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Address: TIDES Study, Weston Education Centre, Cutcombe Rd, London, SE5 9RJ
Email: tides@kcl.ac.uk
Website: www.tidesstudy.com
The King’s College London Data Protection Officer is Albert Chan.
The KCL Privacy Statement can be accessed here:
APMS DATA
The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) series provides data on the prevalence of both treated and untreated psychiatric disorders in the English adult population (aged 16 and over). The 2014 survey is the fourth in a series and was conducted by NatCen Social Research, in collaboration with the University of Leicester, for NHS Digital.
Approval to access APMS 2014 data was acquired by the TIDES team from NHS Digital and a Data Sharing Agreement is in place. The dataset provided by NHS Digital contains limited personal information that could potentially allow participants in the study to be identified; however the risk is considered very small, making this highly unlikely.
We will use this information to analyse current national-level health service utilisation, examine sociodemographic data to identify disparities, compare findings at the national level to those observed locally (via the SELCoH South East London Community Health Survey data, a survey that was originally modelled on APMS), and help to determine what should be included in the TIDES survey.
Although the analysis conducted by the TIDES team will not identify any individual from the data provided to it by NHS Digital, we take great care in protecting it. There are strict contractual standards imposed by NHS Digital as the data provider that was adhere to. These include storing the APMS data on secure KCL servers and restricting access to approved members of the team. As legally, the data is not kept for longer than needed and is securely destroyed at an agreed date.