Online Screening Consent Statement/Information Statement

Welcome to Project PATH!

We would like to invite you to participate in a confidential research study. The purpose of our study is to explore health and risk behaviors, including alcohol and drug use, in adolescents and young adults. We are interested in recruiting people between the ages of 15 and 25, including both individuals who do not drink alcohol and who do drink alcohol. The information you provide for this study may help our research team to better understand who engages in certain types of health or risk behaviors and why.

Online screening survey and phone verification process:

• You will be asked to complete demographic questions (e.g., age, birth sex, race, ethnicity, pregnancy status) and other knowledge-based questions to see if you fit our study needs and for your contact information. We will also ask you questions about how you learned of Project PATH. This short survey takes approximately 5 minutes. This information will be confidential. The overall purpose of this initial screening survey is to determine if you are eligible to participate in the main study.
• If you are age 18 or older, we will ask health and risk behavior questions, such as alcohol or drug use, and sexual experiences.
• If you are under the age of 18, we will ask for your parent/guardian contact information. Before we can give you additional information about the larger study and continue with the next step in verifying your eligibility, we need parental/guardian permission for your participation. Your parent/guardian will NEVER have access to any of your answers throughout the entire study should you choose to participate.
• If a potential fit for our study, we will contact you by phone within approximately 3 business days to give you more information and to verify your eligibility (e.g., age, birth sex, residency, contact information).
• If you are not a good fit for our study, you will receive an email following the completion of this initial screening survey or after the phone verification process notifying you that you are ineligible for the larger study.

Baseline/12-month survey and daily surveys:

• If you are eligible and agree to be in our study, you will be invited to an online baseline survey, which will take approximately 45 minutes to complete. You will be asked to read and sign an online assent form if you agree and choose to participate prior to engaging in the baseline survey and other research related activities. The confidential online survey asks about your basic demographics, including sexual orientation, personality, mood, social media use, social influences (including questions about your friends), health and risk behaviors (e.g., alcohol, marijuana, drug use, family history of alcohol use, sexual behavior), and your experience with COVID-19. You will be paid $25 on a Greenphire Mastercard to compensate for your time, which will be mailed to you after your online training session (see below).
• Following the online survey, you will be invited to schedule for an online training session (hosted via Zoom Video Communications) regarding the daily survey portion of the study (see below). You will then be asked to download and install the Zoom application on your personal device. You will not be asked to sign up for a Zoom account nor agree to the Zoom Terms of Service in order to participate in the online training session. In order to download and run Zoom on your personal device, you will need an iPhone (iOS 7.0 or later), an Android cell phone (Android 4.0x or later), a PC/laptop (with Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, or 10) or a Mac computer/laptop (MACOS 10.7 or later). You will need a stable internet connection during your participation in the online training session. The digital recording feature in Zoom will not be used by the facilitator and participants will not have access to it. Once you join the online session, the session will be locked and no one else will be allowed to join. During the online training session, you will review the consent/assent form with a trained facilitator and verify that you continue to agree to be in the study. You will be shown how survey links will be sent to you via text message and email and will be shown a test survey. Use of your phone during the entire study may contribute to your data use/data plan. The survey links have security features that ensure that all data is kept confidential. The session will last approximately 30 minutes and you will be paid $25 to compensate for your time. After your online session you will be mailed a Greenphire Mastercard. After you receive your card, you will be asked to contact us via email or phone so we can load your card with a total of $50 for the online baseline survey ($25) you previously completed and the online session ($25). You will also be provided with additional information about how the Greenphire Mastercard works during your online training session.
• After the online training session, the next phase of the study includes daily surveys sent via links in text message and email. The survey links have security features to keep all data confidential. You will be asked to complete surveys for one year; within this year there will be four quarters that consist of 3 consecutive weeks of 5-7 minute surveys per quarter. Within each week, there will be 5 weekend assessments (i.e., 2 on Friday, 2 on Saturday, and 1 on Sunday morning), and 3 assessments during the week (i.e., 1 during a random weekday, 1 on the following morning, and 1 on Thursday afternoon) for a total of 8 weekly assessments. The first 3-week survey period will begin the Thursday after your online session. Each following quarter will begin the Thursday 90 days after day 1 of the previous quarter. The daily surveys will include questions about your current drug/alcohol use, situational factors, sexual behavior, and social influences. You will be paid $3 per AM survey and $3 per PM survey, which will be loaded onto your Greenphire Mastercard at the end of each quarter throughout the course of the study. You may receive a bonus of $10 per quarter if you complete 90% or more of the daily assessments.
• You will also be asked to complete one web-based 45-minute survey at the end of the year. The confidential online survey will ask questions about your mood, social media use, and social influences (including questions about your friends). You will receive $25 loaded onto your Greenphire Mastercard for completing this survey.
• You can receive a bonus of $5 on your Greenphire Mastercard if you provide contact information for individuals to contact for potential study enrollment and their provided referral contact information leads to the enrollment of one or more referred individuals. In total, you can earn up to $408 loaded onto your Greenphire Mastercard over the course of the one-year study.

Unless you withdraw from the research study, the researchers can continue to use or share your de-identified (no identifiers) information indefinitely. The researchers will be publishing articles and presenting data at conferences. Data will be de-identified (no identifiers) by the end of the study.

Participating in this study is voluntary. You may refuse to answer any question and still submit your survey without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You are free to withdraw at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.

Researchers will only retain your contact information if you are eligible for this study or if you are age 18 or older and agree (during the screening survey) to be contacted for future research studies. If you are ineligible for this study and you do not agree to be contacted for future research studies, your contact information will be deleted within 30 days and not be used in any way. If you are eligible for this study or if you are age 18 or older and agree to be contacted for future research studies, your contact information will only be used for the purposes of contacting you about the study or future research studies and we will retain your contact information indefinitely unless you request to no longer be contacted for future studies.

If you are 15-17 years old, you and your parent/guardian’s contact information will be deleted within 30 days in the event that your parent/guardian does not grant consent, or does not respond to the consent invitation or repeated consent reminders.

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The risks associated with participation in this short online survey are primarily related to the sensitivity of some of the questions. If you are age 18 or older, you will be asked about personal behaviors such as alcohol use, drug use, and sexual behavior. These questions may make you feel uncomfortable or may seem intrusive, or you may become concerned about your drinking or other health behaviors as you answer the questions. You are asked to report on illegal behaviors, such as drinking under the legal age, or using controlled substances. Answers to these questions could pose a risk if the information were known and linked to identifiable individuals. It is possible that you will feel uncomfortable while taking the survey, or feel as if you should share information that you don’t want to share. Additionally, there is informational risk since your contact information will be maintained for at least 30 days. However, we have taken steps to protect you from this risk. All of your data will be kept confidential and data will be identified only by a PIN (personalized identification number) randomly generated for research purposes, and will not be identified by participants’ names. The PIN is always embedded in survey links, meaning the link is specific to you and your survey data. Thus, you will not ever need to enter your PIN to complete study surveys.

If you would like to participate, please indicate your consent/assent below.

Melissa A. Lewis, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
melissa.lewis@unthsc.edu, 817-735-5136

Please answer the question below and hit NEXT (regardless of your answer).

PARTICIPANT’S STATEMENT

This study has been explained to me. I have had a chance to ask questions. If I have questions later about the research, I can ask one of the researchers listed above. If I have questions about my rights as a research subject, I can call the North Texas Regional Institutional Review Board at (817) 735-0409.

Your research records will be kept as confidential as possible under current local, state, and federal law. However, federal regulatory agencies and the North Texas Regional Institutional Review Board may examine your records.

Please sign and complete the information below if you checked the “YES” box above. This information will document your consent for this initial screening survey. All of your responses will be kept confidential.

Please submit your completed consent form by pressing the ‘Next’ button below.