Suresearch member, Jo Barber writes:
We are doing a qualitative research study investigating how religion and spirituality affect recovery from mental health problems and we are urgently looking for participants to help us. This work has been paused during the pandemic but we are now resuming interviews. If you are interested in participating, please read on.
Our aims are to increase understanding of the processes by which spirituality or religion can facilitate recovery, and also why, for some people, it can actually be a hindrance. For more details of our work on spirituality and mental health and to read the full protocol of this particular study see the research section of the Suresearch website.
We have so far done 22 interviews, of which almost all have shown huge benefits of spirituality and religion for service users. Many have found new meaning, purpose, hope, motivation and comfort from their religion or spirituality and this has greatly facilitated their personal recovery.
However, we are now interested in hearing from people who find, or have found in the past, their own religion or spirituality to be a struggle, with personal religious experiences that have held them back in their recovery. If this is you, then please seriously consider if you could help us. To take part you must have been a user of the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust services at some point, (not necessarily at present).
Participating in the study involves doing an interview to share your experiences with us and giving us some demographic details. You will have your expenses reimbursed, free refreshments and £20 as a token of our appreciation.
If you think you might be able to help us in this way, then please contact one of us so we can send you more details and answer your questions. You will have as much time as you want to decide whether or not to take part. We are able to do face to face interviews at present but we soon expect to have permission to do online interviews if this would be your preference given the current situation.
You can view the recruitment poster for the research here.
Thank you so much for considering this. We are very grateful and look forward to hearing from you.
Dr Jo Barber service user researcher and member of Suresearch
jobarberbpo@gmail.com
07810898316 or 0121 443 2882
Ann Davis Emeritus Professor from Birmingham University and Founder of Suresearch
anndavis139@gmail.com
07897002434