Participant Information Sheet

Resilience in young South African men exposed to Intimate Partner Violence in childhood.
Dear Participant
My name is Georgia Wakefield. I am a Masters student in Community-Based Counselling
Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. My supervisor is Prof.
Tanya Graham and I am conducting a research study about resilience among young adult men
in South Africa. The study title is: Resilience in young South African men exposed to Intimate
Partner Violence (IPV) in childhood.
You have been invited to participate in this study as a South African man if you are between
above 21 years of age, have been exposed to domestic IPV during your childhood, and
understand yourself to be resilient in your adulthood. You will be required to meet with me,
the researcher, twice for this research study. The first meeting is an online briefing meeting
which will take place via zoom call or mobile call and will take between 30 minutes to an hour
in length. During this meeting, the principles, purposes, and method of data collection of the
study will be sufficiently explained to you. Moreover, the study’s exclusion criteria will be
thoroughly discussed. Here, you will be asked questions to determine whether it would be
ethical for you to participate in a sensitive research study. If you show signs of acute
emotional distress, you will be excluded from the research study.
Before our next meeting, you will be accorded a two-week period in which you will be asked
to take up to five photographs regarding your understanding of resilience as a young South
African man, despite exposure to domestic IPV in childhood. You will be asked to use your
own smartphone with a functioning camera in order to document these photographs. During
this two-week period, we will schedule a photo elicitation interview as well as decide upon a
suitable venue of your choosing on campus. After photographs have been captured, you will
be asked to email your images to me a day before our scheduled meeting.
In our second meeting, the photo elicitation interview, we will discuss your understanding of
resilience as well as your chosen photographs. This interview will take between 45 minutes
to an hour and a half in length. With your permission, I would like to audio record this
interview. The audio recording will be used to transcribe the photo elicitation interview for
research purposes. This data will be stored on a password protected laptop for a maximum
of two years and will be deleted thereafter. Only me, the researcher, as well as my supervisor
will have access to this data.
The photo elicitation interview will be confidential where your name will be protected
through the use of a pseudonym of your choosing instead of using your true name. Anonymity
will be maintained in this study by excluding any and all photographs that contain identifiable
features of people or participants, such as faces. You as well as individuals who do feature in
your photographs will be given detailed informed consent documents stating your/their right
of ownership over these photographs. Additionally, original photographs will be kept for a
maximum of two years for research purposes. They will also be stored in a password
protected laptop. Thereafter, they will be permanently deleted. As such, it is important to
mention that only myself, my supervisor, and you as research participants will have access to
these original photographs. When I share the results of the research study, I will not include
your name or anything else that could identify you without your permission first. With your
permission, other researchers may use the data collected from this research study, but your
name and any personal information will not be used or passed on.
If you do decide to take part in this research study, it should be because you are choosing to
volunteer. You are not obligated to take part. During the research process, you do not have
to answer certain questions if you do not want to and you may stop participating in the study
at any given time. You will not lose any services, benefits, or rights you would normally have
if you decide not to join. Taking part in this research study will not include additional expenses
on your behalf, apart from your usual transport expenses to and from campus. It is important
to note that you will not be paid for partaking in this research study. However, you will gain
experience as a research participant in a formal research study in the field of psychology.
The risks for this research study include exploring and investigating a topic of a highly sensitive
nature. Should the research study cause acute distress, a research interview distress protocol
will be initiated. Using a set of questions, it will be determined whether you are experiencing
expected or significant emotional distress. If your distress reflects an emotional response
indicative of what would be expected in an interview about a sensitive topic, you will be
offered the opportunity to: stop the interview, regain composure, and optionally continue
the interview another time. However, if your distress reflects acute emotional distress or a
safety concern beyond what would be expected in an interview regarding a sensitive topic,
the following actions will be taken:
1. You will be referred to a toll-free online counselling service, The South African
Depression and Anxiety Group, and will be provided with the following contact details:
a. Cipla Mental Health 24/7 Emergency Helpline: 0800 456 789
b. Cipla Mental Health WhatsApp number available between 8AM-5PM: 076 882
2775
c. Maybelline BraveTogether WhatsApp number available between 8AM-5PM:
087163 2030
2. You will also be encouraged to call either of these numbers if you are experiencing
increased distress in the hours or days following the interview.
This research study will be written up as a research report. The report will be available on the
Wits university library website, and results may also be published in journal articles. If you
would like to receive a summary of the report, a copy will be sent to you.
If you have any questions concerning this research study, feel free to contact me or my
supervisor using the details listed below. If you have any concerns or complaints about the
ethical procedures of this research study, you are welcome to contact the University Human
Research Ethics Committee (Non-Medical), telephone +27(0) 11 717 1408, email hrecnon-
[email protected].

Yours sincerely,
Georgia Wakefield

Researcher:
Georgia Wakefield, [email protected]

Supervisor:
Tanya Graham, [email protected]