Consent Form

Ethics approval: March 7, 2008

Diabetes educators’ confidence in exercise counseling: An examination of the effectiveness of the ‘The Physical Activity and Exercise Tool-kit’ as a key counseling resource.

This study is being conducted by Carrie Dillman, an honours undergraduate student in Kinesiology in collaboration with Drs. Chris Shields, Jonathon Fowles and Rene Murphy from the School of Recreation Management and Kinesiology at Acadia University. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of physical activity and exercise resources in promoting diabetes educators’ confidence in physical activity counseling and prescription within their practice.

As a participant in this study, you will be assigned to either a standard care or intervention condition. The standard care condition will receive, and be asked to refer to Canada’s Physical Activity Guide to inform their physical activity counseling and prescription within their practice.  The intervention group will receive and be asked to refer to a ‘Physical Activity and Exercise Tool-kit’ to inform their physical activity counseling and prescription within their practice.  In addition, you will be asked to complete a series of brief questionnaires at two separate time points (baseline and six months later).  Completing each of these series of questionnaires will take approximately 15-30 minutes of your time.  Questionnaires will be completed on-line via a secure website created specifically for this study.  Because employers are legally entitled to monitor electronic communications in the work-place, responses to the online questionnaire may be viewed by employers if it is completed at work.  Participation in this study will not require any additional testing. The information obtained from this research may help in the evaluation and development of resources aimed at facilitating physical activity and exercise counseling by diabetes educators.   There are no known possible risks or side/effects associated with participation in this study. 

Confidentiality will be respected.  No information that discloses your identity will be released or published.  All information collected from participants in this study will be reported in group form in any report, publication or presentation resulting from this study.  The data will be kept for a period of five years and will be securely stored in a locked office in my supervisor’s research laboratory. Participation in this study is completely voluntary and you may withdraw from the study at any time by advising the researcher. In addition, you may leave any questions unanswered.  If you have any questions about participation in this study, please feel free to ask the researchers. If you have additional questions at a later date, please contact Carrie Dillman, e-mail: 091696d@acadiau.ca or Dr. Chris Shields at (902) 585-1319, e-mail: chris.shields@acadiau.ca.  

This project has been reviewed by, and received ethics clearance through the Research Ethics Board at Acadia University. In the event you have any questions or concerns resulting from your participation in this study, please contact their office at (902) 585-1498.

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