The impact of asthma on your quality of life

Hello all,

This is a relisting of a subject from a few weeks ago (so apologies if you're reading again). Many thanks to those of you who have already offered to help.

I am contacting the group to see if anyone would be interested in helping with some research we are conducting in asthma.

I work for an independent research company that specialises in the development of questionnaires assessing how illness affects a person’s quality of life. Last year we interviewed people with asthma to ascertain their perspective on how the condition affects them and their quality of life. We developed questionnaires based on the interviews and we now need to test them with people with asthma to see if they provide valid and reliable information.

We are already recruiting patients through Peterborough NHS Trust hospital for which we have ethic committee approval but we are now trying to recruit volunteers from online groups and charities to ensure that we have sufficient participants to complete the study. The final questionnaires will be freely available to the NHS and will be used to determine how effective treatments are.

We are looking for adults (aged 18 and over) with asthma who live in the UK to complete the questionnaires in a postal survey on two occasions. The questionnaires would be posted out to you together with a reply-paid envelope for their return. The questionnaires ask about symptoms and how asthma affects your life and take about 20 minutes to complete.

All information that you provide is anonymous and treated as strictly confidential. We would not keep your address details after the postal survey has been completed.

If you are interested in helping with the research please email (or reply on this site) or call (see contact details below) with your name and address. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the research or would like more information.

Many thanks,

Jeanette Wilburn

Galen Research

Manchester

UK

[e-mail]

Tel: [phone]

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Picking flies, as I have a particular talent for doing, you specifically state that you have ethics committee approval for the Peterborough branch of the research.

Do you also have ethics approval for the recruitment of online volunteers?

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Ethics

Hi Cathbear,

We obtained approval from the peterborough and fenlands NHS trust since we are working through an NHS hospital there. Research ethics committee approval tends only to be sought (and requested) when we are working with the NHS. So I guess the answer to your question is 'No'. However, I was hoping that the fact that the study had been approved by an NHS Trust might reassure anyone who had concerns about the nature of the research.

Thanks