This article has been brought to you by Slough Borough Council's Education Safeguarding Professional, Jatinder Matharu, for the attention of All Secondary Schools.
On behalf of Public Health, Slough Borough Council, we are writing to invite you to participate in our upcoming research on the perceptions of risks of e-cigarettes and the use of such products among Year 7/8/9/10 pupils in Slough. The study has been approved by Slough Public Health Ethics Panel.
What is the research about?
Vaping is a concerning public health issue among young people and the evidence suggest that young people find it more appealing and less risky to smoking. However, there is insufficient research around the level of knowledge young people have about the risks of vaping. There is also not enough evidence to establish patterns (if any) in the use of e-cigarettes among young people in Slough. Such evidence especially at a local level will provide intelligence to develop and design appropriate school-based interventions. The research is in two parts. The first part seeks to examine issues relating to use of e-cigarettes among young people including assessing their awareness of the risks of vaping while the second part will examine how researchers can engage with young people in research studies. There are several reasons why young people choose to engage or not to engage in research. We want to find out more about what would motivate them to engage in research, so their views and opinions can form the basis of local Slough intervention designing.
What is required of the pupils?
Pupils will be required to complete an online anonymised survey which should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete. Any information collected during the course of the study will be kept strictly confidential and at no point will the name of a pupil appear on any document from any of our findings. The survey will ask questions about their awareness of the risks of vaping and where applicable find out about their experience of using vaping products. Some additional questions on the barriers and motivations for engaging in research will also be included in the survey.
What is required of the schools?
The survey will be completed during normal school hours in the computer rooms. We expect that the pupils will be guided to the room by a member of staff who will provide any technical support for the pupils to complete the survey independently.
Our target is to recruit five schools and up to 200 pupils per school, we will require your support to achieve this target. The survey will be disseminated from Monday 6th February to Monday 20th February 2023. We appreciate that this is a short timeframe but we are working towards strict deadlines set by the funder of the project.
How will consent be obtained?
Consent will be obtained via three stages. The first stage will involve the schools consenting to administrating the survey. The second stage will involve providing the parents of the pupils in chosen year groups an information sheet and an opt out form which they will be expected to complete electronically. Finally on the day of the survey, pupils will be able to provide their agreement via the anonymous survey link.
The data collected from the study will be stored in a secure manner by the researcher of the study and will be destroyed by the research team 12 months after the study report is complete.
Are there any benefits in taking part?
The information collected during this research will give us a better understanding of the level of awareness of the risks of vaping and e-cigarette use among young people and would enable the Slough Public Health to plan better and more targeted engagement and educational interventions to improve understanding of the risks.
Every participating school will be provided a one-off incentive of £1000 and an additional £5 for every child that participates in the study. Schools will have autonomy of how this money is spent but we suggest that this can go towards enhancing learning experience of young people e.g. through purchase of learning materials or educational trips.
This invitation has been sent to all secondary schools in Slough and the slot to participate will be allocated based on the timeliness of the response we receive. Once we have received consent from five schools, we would no longer be able to accept any more schools. The inclusion is strictly on first come basis.
If there are any further questions about this study or you wish you to raise any concerns about this research, please contact Dr. Vanita Dutta Vanita.Dutta@slough.gov.uk or Dr. Janet Ige Janet.Ige@slough.gov.uk