Thank you for your interest in the ALERT Study. In the following we will provide you with some details about the study procedure. All activities of the ALERT study can be completed online. There will be no travelling needed during the study.
1. Registration and screening
To begin, you can use the above link to fill out the registration survey. After filling it out, the researchers of the ALERT Study will contact you and send you a brief screening questionnaire which we will use to check whether you meet the requirements to participate in the ALERT study. This questionnaire will not take more than 5 minutes.
2. Briefing
If you qualify to participate, you will be invited to an in-person online briefing in which one of our researchers will discuss the procedure of the study with you. There will also be room to address potential questions you might have. You will try out the app together with one of the researchers to make sure everything runs smoothly on your device.
3. Initital comprehensive questionnaire
After the briefing, you will receive a link to the first comprehensive online questionnaire. In this questionnaire we will ask you general questions about your mental health and how you deal with stress and difficult situations in daily life. This questionnaire will take about 20-30 minutes to complete.
4. Study phase
After completing the initital comprehensive questionnaire you will start with the actual study on the following Monday. This phase will take 23 days. During the first 7 days, you will only receive brief questionnaires on your mobile phone (4 per day, 1-2 minutes per questionnaire). In the upcoming 16 days, you will receive up to 8 brief questionnaires a day. In addition to these questionnaires you will receive brief mental health exercises up to two times per day. These exercises are developed to improve your mental health and support you in dealing with stressful situations in daily life. Each individual questionnaire will take about 2 minutes to complete and one mental health exercise needs about 10-15 minutes to be completed. More details about the exercises and things to keep in mind during the study will be addressed during the briefing sessions.
5. Second extensive questionnaire
After completing the 23-day study phase, we will ask you to complete a second comprehensive questionnaire, which will be very similiar to the initital extensive questionnaire.
6. Debriefing (optional)
After the study is completed, you have the option to arrange a debriefing session with a researcher. This session is an opportunity to discuss your results, offer suggestions for improvement, or share your experience throughout the study.
More information about the compensation scheme can be found here