Assignment: Maintaining Confidentiality
Assignment: Maintaining Confidentiality
Assignment: Maintaining Confidentiality
Week 7 – Assignment 1 Discussion This discussion will focus on the measurement tools you will use to evaluate change from the intervention. The purpose of this discussion is to fine-tune your thinking about evaluation by receiving feedback from colleagues and faculty. Include in your discussion: Write a brief description of your project that starts by stating your clinical question and succinctly explaining your planned intervention in order to orient everyone. Will you need to develop your own evaluation tools or are valid and reliable tools available? If you create your own tools, what are your thoughts on pilot testing them? How will you go about this? Will you gather baseline data? Will you use pre- and posttests? How will you measure change? How will you identify the participants for your study? How does the sampling method chosen further define the type of study you will be doing? How will you ensure confidentiality of study participants?
If it is essential to collect and link identifying information (e.g., subjects’ names) to subjects’ responses (e.g., questionnaire answers), researchers must do their best and may need to be creative to provide the utmost confidentiality of subject data. The following are examples of practices that may be implemented to increase the level of confidentiality:
- Use study codes on data documents (e.g., completed questionnaire) instead of recording identifying information and keep a separate document that links the study code to subjects’ identifying information locked in a separate location and restrict access to this document (e.g., only allowing primary investigators access);
- Encrypt identifiable data;
- Remove face sheets containing identifiers (e.g., names and addresses) from survey instruments containing data after receiving from study participants;
- Properly dispose, destroy, or delete study data / documents;
- Limit access to identifiable information;
- Securely store data documents within locked locations; and/or
- Assign security codes to computerized records.
