General issues
iLab meetings
Our latest iLab meeting (31-03-2014) was another interesting and successful encounter. Three excellent lectures were given by Jos Bosch, Jan Houtveen and Maria Schenk on collections of biomarkers in saliva, urine, and blood. The persons who attended were involved and the discussions were fruitful. The presentations can be found online. The next iLab meeting “The use of diaries in clinical practice” will be in the University Center of Psychiatry room 3.18 on the 29th of September 2014 (15h to 17h). The exact program will follow soon. The first iLab meeting of 2015 will be on the 30th of March (15h to 17h).
Five potential misunderstandings about the internal iLab site
A document about five potential misunderstandings about the internal iLab website has been spread earlier this week on May 26. The purpose of spreading this document is to ease out potential misunderstandings about the iLab site. If you did not receive the document, but are curious, click here. The document will be discussed in the PhD lunch on the 17th June (public event, room 1.25, Triade Building) and the ICPE-meeting on the 23rd June.
iLab Smartphones and iPads
Twenty-five Android Smartphones (Motorola), 20 iPads and 20 mini-iPads have become available for use of iLab studies. The smartphones and iPads are (almost) labeled and can be reserved by the usual equipment reservation form on which you have to fill out the number of devices and the duration you want to use them. Jantina Douglas coordinates the reservations of the devices. Researchers have to contact her (j.douglas@umcg.nl), and sign a form that they will be responsible for damage or loss of the phone or iPad during the period they borrow it.
Smartphones credits
The smartphones are available without credits, so no minutes or 3G/4G. Suggestions for credit on the phone can be found on the iLab website soon. We recommend the use of a Vodafone hybrid prepaid card. The advantage of this card is that you pay for your credit in advance, but is not such expensive as a usual prepaid card. Moreover, (and even more important) when the credits are finished, participants are not able to use the internet or to call anymore (preventing from high costs for usage of the phone for purposes not related to the diary study). It is possible for you to top up when a participant runs out of credits, but this is quite costly. You can terminate or change the amount of your credits every month, but be aware that you have to do so 10 days in advance of the upcoming month. Currently this card is used in a pilot study in the UCP (contact via Harriette Riese) and HoeGekisNL (contact via Maria Schenk). The prepaid card bought for these two projects were the 300min or sms/500 MB cards for E19.95/month.
Reminders to keep the site (iLab Google Drive platform) up-to-date
*Remove reservations of equipment from the reservation form, once you brought the equipment back
*Move your study information folder from the folder “ongoing” to “finished”, once your study is finished
*After your study is finished, complete the variable sheets with suggestions for further research and information about variance of your data in individual participants
Study results
Evaluation of diary reports
Awa Diallo, student applied psychology from the Hanze Hogeschool, evaluated participants’ experiences with the reports they received based on their participation in the MOOVD diary study. The main goal of the MOOVD study is to examine the relationship between depressive symptoms and physical exercise, based on diaries and an accelerometer. Thirty-three participants of the MOOVD study were contacted, of whom 17 (9 depressed, 8 non-depressed) participated in this evaluation study. The evaluation showed that participants were in general satisfied with the information they received: the average mark was 7.6 (on a scale from 0-10). Fourteen (88%) participants discussed the results with someone else, and eight participants (47%) reported that they adapted their lifestyles based on the information in the reports. The reports were handed to the patients only. Remarkably, only one participant with a depressive disorder discussed the findings of the diary study with his therapist. Furthermore, the majority of participants wanted to receive a digital report instead of receiving a printer version of the report during a consult with the researcher or by the regular mail. More details and results of this student project can be found online.
Calender
17-06-2014 | 12.00-12.30 | iLab presentation during the PhD lunch (public): “The internal iLab site: misunderstandings, demonstration and room for improvement” | Triade Building, room K1.25 |
23-06-2014 | 12.30-13.00 | iLab presentation during the ICPE-meeting: “The internal iLab site: misunderstandings, demonstration and room for improvement” | Triade Building, room K1.25 |
29-09-2014 | 15.00-17.00 | Regular iLab meeting (public): “The use of diaries in clinical practice” | University Center Psychiatry, room 3.18 |
30-03-2015 | 15.00-17.00 | Regular iLab meeting (public) | University Center Psychiatry, room 3.18 |
Please note that all links in this document only work if you login to the iLab Google Docs environment. If you want access to this environment, please contact Jantina Douglas. If you want to share your iLab study results or have other contributions to this newsletter, please contact Karin Janssens.