Have your say: Doing Research about Mental Health and Wellbeing in Rural Areas
- Area of Work: Policy and Research
- Type: News Item
- Published: 30th May 2024
Take part in a survey to help Community Knowledge Matters understand the priorities around research on mental health in rural areas.
How do you think research about mental health and wellbeing in rural areas should be done? What should the priorities be?
Community Knowledge Matters have developed a survey with a group of community members with a range of lived experiences including those with no previous involvement in research, alongside practitioners and academic researchers at the University of the Highlands & Islands.
They believe that anyone can do research, it doesn’t only need to be carried out in universities or by academics. They decided to put together a survey to find out how you might like to engage with future mental health research in a rural context, so that it can feel fair, meaningful and relevant to your priorities.
Not only have the survey questions themselves been collaboratively set but the working group will also co-analyse the responses, which will then be shared more widely so that it can be used to help inform future research and policy around mental health & wellbeing in rural areas. The findings will also be used to help shape their own network priorities and future programme activities.
They are particularly interested in hearing from people who live in a rural part of Scotland, especially in the Highlands & Islands. You can find out more information on their website, or fill out the survey here.
There will be a variety of question types including multiple choice, free text, and sliding scales. This could take around 30 minutes of your time.
Anyone who completes the survey will have the option to be entered into a draw for the chance of winning one of six £50 local shopping vouchers.
Answers will be anonymised and any personal information given in responses will be taken out before being shared more widely. Incomplete surveys will not be included, so if you decide not to finish it they will assume you do not want to be included in the research findings.
You will be able to save the survey and come back to it, or go back and change previous answers before you submit.
They will be sharing some initial findings from the survey at their in-person gathering in Inverness on 10 June. If you haven’t yet signed up, you can do so directly here, or there are still a few days to apply for their community bursary.
If you have any questions, please get in touch lauren@scienceceilidh.com
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