Collecting data from a clinical sample

About collecting non-NHS data from participants who have a diagnosed (or suspected) mental health disorder.

Undergraduate and MSc students may work with non-NHS clinical samples for their projects so long as the following conditions are met:

1. An academic member of staff is willing to supervise the project
2. The project supervisor must have demonstrable expertise in working with the given population, with this expertise demonstrated either through:
   • the attainment of relevant clinical/counselling certification AND/OR
   • having published at least one study for which s/he worked directly with the target population, e.g., via data collection
3. The project supervisor must attend all data collection and other occasions where there will be direct contact with participants. The PREC may allow exceptions to this rule, but such exceptions would depend on: the (lack of) sensitivity of the topic under study, the particular disorder involved, and/or the project supervisor's prior experience overseeing similar studies. Applicants who want to be exempted from this rule should provide a rationale for their request (relating to all or some of the above issues) somewhere in their initial application.
4. The supervisor and students have applied for and obtained ethical approval for the project from the Psychology Research Ethics Committee.

Note: if an undergraduate or MSc student would like to recruit a clinical sample (and/or data) via the NHS, s/he will have to apply for ethical approval (under the supervision of a member of academic staff) from the NHS. Given the length of time this process takes, however, it is not likely to be feasible for an undergraduate or MSc project.