Re: Diabetes & Emotional Wellbeing

coonskin@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Would a depressed diabetic bother to answer? For that matter, what
subpopulation of diabetics would do so? You can never know what the
results mean.

This is true of any voluntary research. Self-selection bias could be
avoided by holding a gun to the heads of randomly selected diabetics
(and non-diabetics), but I do suspect our Ethics Committee would be a
little unenthusiastic :)

The non-diabetic population has been recruited in a very similar way,
and this is the group with whom depression rates are being compared, so
I think this issue will have a limited effect. Again, We Shall See.

Its possible that it is entirely a brain chemistry thing with a glucose
level twist in which case best answers are more likely to be
neural/chemical and not subjective question and answer in form. I did
not look at your survey, what possible question would ever do more then
confirm a reported already known higher level among diabetics that in
the end is a biology thing?

Previous methodologies had problems, which could have produced
inaccurate estimates for depression among diabetics. That is one of the
reasons for my study.

I lied, just to be fair attempted just now to look at the survey. It
uses java script which my browser does not, another self selecting
factor as to those who respond. There are many survey type pages on the
web that do not use java script that perform the same function equally
well.

Can you suggest one? I am registered blind and therefore have my own
problems with JavaScript, but I could not find a non-JS survey site as
good as SurveyMonkey. I would be glad to hear of alternatives for
future research, so I look forward to your answer.

May I suggest that diabetes clinics and local support groups and
diabetic education groups are a better source for whatever you are
trying to do.

The reason why I am not using diabetes clinics is that I would require
ethical approval which takes a long time to obtain, _if_ it is granted
at all, and I am working to a deadline. Also Internet-based recruitment
will produce more respondents within a short space of time.

I had considered local support/education groups, but my supervisor
advised against this, since I would need to find a similar source for
my non-diabetic participants, and this posed a problem.

I do find these comments interesting, however I have a great deal of
specialist support from my university, and will of course receive
detailed critiques of my work after it is submitted. Right now, my
focus has to be on getting as many participants as I can to take part.
I will try to respond to (constructive) criticism as much as I can on
this thread, but please accept my apologies in advance if my workload
takes my attention elsewhere.

Karen/Fox

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