College Student Gambling and Substance Use

Investigators: Dr. Elizabeth Katz & Matthew Abell
Phone: 410-404-3072 (Dr. Katz) or 443-655-0258 (Mr. Abell)
E-mail: ekatz@towson.edu or mabell1@students.towson.edu
IRB Approved: IRB#2458
IRB Email: irb@towson.edu
IRB Phone: 410-704-6227

Purpose of the study: The purpose of this research study is to examine a variety of college student health-related behaviors, including their online and in-person gambling behaviors. 

Procedures: If you decide to participate in this study, you will be asked questions about your gambling behaviors, alcohol and drug usage, impulsive traits, moral injury, and psychological symptoms from the DSM-V. Additionally, questions will be asked regarding topics such as personal demographic information (age, gender, etc.), along with questions regarding education, work, and income. The entire survey is predicted to take you around 20 to 30 minutes to complete from start to finish.

Participants will be recruited through social media, psychology data collection platforms (i.e., Social Psychology Network; Psychological Research on the Net) and the Towson University psychology department research pool. If you agree to participate in this research study your response will be anonymously collected and analyzed along with the responses of other anonymous participants.

Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria: In order to participate in this study, you must be at least 18 years old, a US citizen or resident, and a current college student (undergraduate or graduate).  You must also agree to have your responses anonymously recorded and analyzed.

Risk/Discomfort: To our knowledge there is no risk (or possible harm) to you from your participation in this study. All survey responses will be anonymized, and the only information collected that could include any form of personally identifiable information (PII) are open-ended text responses. These responses will be clearly labeled to prevent such breaches of your anonymity. Such open-ended text responses will include a message stating “Please be careful not to put anything in your response that could be used to identify you or another person”.

However, should you be feeling distressed for any reason, whether related to the study or not, we recommend that you access the following resources:
- For Towson University Students - please contact the Towson University Counseling center which has 24/7 emergency sessions by telephone as well as same-day appointments, Monday through Friday from 8AM to 5PM.  Their contact information can be found at this link: https://www.towson.edu/counseling/

You may also contact the following resources:
- National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) Helpline: https://www.nami.org/support-education/nami-helpline/
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: https://988lifeline.org/
- Substance Use and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

Benefits: You are unlikely to benefit personally from this study. However, the current study will help us better understand college students' gambling behaviors, mental health symptoms, and other characteristics. 

Alternatives to participation: Your participation in this study is voluntary (that is, it is up to you whether or not to participate) and you have the right to discontinue your involvement in the study at any time without penalty. However, because the data are anonymous, you cannot withdraw your consent once you submit the survey; thus any data you provide will be used in our analysis. You may also choose not to answer any questions that you do not want to answer. If you do not want to participate in this study then click NO, I DO NOT WANT TO PARTICIPATE at the bottom of this page. Note that if you are a Towson University student who has accessed this study through the psychology department research pool website, you can earn credits through means other than participating in research. See the research pool website for more details. 

Cost Compensation: If you are a Towson University student and have accessed this study through the SONA system, you will receive 0.5 credits for participating in this study.  To earn credits, you need to click the link at the end of the survey to bring you back to the research pool website. If you do not click this link, then you will not receive credit for participation in the study. 

If you have accessed this study through social media or one of the online data collection sites, you will not be compensated for your participation in this study.

Confidentiality: To ensure your anonymity, we are not collecting any identifying information that could be used to identify you. The program used to house the questionnaire will be set to remove all identifying information from the dataset including IP addresses. We ask that you NOT include information that could identify in your open-ended responses. Any publications or reports that result from this research will not include identifying information on any participant. The data are being collected via the online platform Qualtrics. To address any concerns, you may have about the confidentiality of data collected in this manner, please see Qualtrics’ Data Privacy Policy at https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-platform/getting-started/data-protection-privacy/. You should specifically look at the section entitled, Data Subject Requests.

Moreover, for participants accessing the study through the Towson University psychology department research pool, note that we are using the auto-crediting system.  As such, there will be no link between you and the data you provide. Moreover, the researchers will not know who participated in the study. Thus, this auto-crediting system further ensures the anonymity of your data and participation.

Contact Information: If you have any questions regarding your rights as a research participant please contact the Institutional Review Board Vice Chairperson, Dr. Bethany Willis, Office of University Research Services, 8000 York Road, Towson University, Towson, Maryland 21252; phone (410) 704-2236. If you have questions about the study, please contact the Investigators, Matthew Abell (mabell1@students.towson.edu) or Elizabeth Katz, PhD (ekatz@towson.edu).

Disclosures: By clicking "yes, I agree to participate" below, I am indicating my understanding that (a) I am participating in a research study; (b) my participation is completely voluntary and that I can stop participating at any time; and (c) I do not have to answer any questions I do not want to answer.