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Washington D.C. In-Person Interview Subjects Wanted

slayadragon

Senior Member
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The following notice looking for people to participate in an in-person interview in the Washington D.C. is from the sister of a friend of mine.

*


interested in earning $50?​
PARTICIPANTS NEEDED FOR IN-PERSON INTERVIEW​


Westat, a research organization located in Rockville, Maryland, is seeking adults to take part in a 45-minute in-person interview to review survey questions for a large national health survey. Eligible participants must be age 18 or over and been diagnosed as having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). We are especially interested in talking with people who have severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.


If you meet these conditions, please call 888-963-5578. Please leave your name and telephone number, say that you are calling about the “CFS health study interview,” and specify the best time to reach you.

WESTAT​
EOE​
*

Here is some more information about the study:

I didn’t want to give you the IRB materials since they were highly detailed about the study. We don’t want the participants to get any information that might bias their answers. We answer all of the participants’ questions when we are finished – that way what we tell them won’t change the way they view the questions. I put together this short paragraph that explains the testing situation. Your friend can call in and be screened if she wants to get a first-hand idea of what it’s all about.

We need to do 9 in-person interviews starting next week and then 9 telephone interviews in about a month. Not everyone who calls in can be used. We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and sometimes people really need the money and we still can’t use them. Sometimes it gets very sad. Just make that clear to everyone so we don’t get people expecting something that it is not.

Westat and BRFSS Testing
Westat (www.westat.com), a social science research company in Rockville, MD, holds a contract with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the testing of questions that appear on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS). BRFSS is a telephone survey that is administered in all 50 states and U.S. territories. BRFSS collects data on health conditions and health behaviors. The main users of BRFSS data are state and other local level government entities. In this particular task, Westat will cognitively test 4 questions on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and make recommendations to CDC on the questions’ suitability for inclusion in the BRFSS and the extent to which the questions will require revision. The study participants will be probed about their experience of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome to collect information relevant to redesigning the survey questions. Participation in this study is voluntary. The participant can stop at any point and skip any question. Everything covered is treated as confidential. The participant is read his/her rights as a research subject and either signs a research consent form or gives verbal consent. This study has been reviewed and approved by the Westat Institutional Review Board. Only highly expert and senior survey methodologists will conduct the interviews with the participants. Westat is an industry leader in rigorous social science research and has held this contract is successive competitive bids since 2007.

We deem this a very important task since it represents an initial step in getting CFS on government health surveys.

Thank you for your generous assistance,
Pat Brick
Co-Project Director
BRFSS Cognitive Testing Tasks
 

slayadragon

Senior Member
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Location
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I don't know the answer to that, Vamah.

Someone just told me that they are recruiting for this study through the local illness groups and that those groups are big into "mind-body" interventions, and that therefore it could be that they will end up with people who are more depression rather than ME cases.

So if anyone in DC wants to go to this thing, maybe they will at least be seeing people who have the right disease!
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
I would be concerned about participating in a survey about "CFS" from a "social science research company" with a contract with the CDC. It doesn't sound like they're starting from a medical/physical perspective, which isn't the best news. Then there's the connection to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey. Behavioral risk factors? As in, are there ways we behave -- relating to stress, dietary issues, drug or alcohol use maybe (?) -- that identify us as at risk for "CFS"? o_O

Add to that
We don’t want the participants to get any information that might bias their answers. We answer all of the participants’ questions when we are finished – that way what we tell them won’t change the way they view the questions.
which has the flavor of not trusting us to answer honestly and/or with sound mental health, and this sounds way to much like it's heading down the BPS path. The whole thing sounds awfully hinky to me.