Men Talking About Suicide (MTAS) study

Project status: Recruitment complete

In England, around one in five men aged 40 to 65 have experienced suicidal thoughts and around one in 20 have made a suicide attempt.

A team of researchers at UCL (University College London) have been funded to run an online research study about attitudes to suicide among UK-based men aged 40 to 65 years. Collaborating with men who have lived experience of suicidal thoughts, they have created a 1-minute video designed for social media platforms (eg YouTube, Instagram). This features two men talking about their experiences of feeling suicidal. The team are now keen to hear what UK-based men aged 40 to 65 years think about this video.

two men sitting opposite each other

A frame from the video is shown here

Taking part

Taking part in the online research session involves:

  • Joining a one-to-one Microsoft Teams call with a research assistant
  • Watching the 1 minute video whilst on the Teams call
  • Completing online measures of mood and attitudes whilst on the Teams call
  • Letting the research assistant know your views on the video during the Teams call.

Timeline

  1. The session would last about 30-45 minutes but we are allowing up to an hour for the booked slot in case you have any further questions at the end.
  2. Participants will receive a check-in call from the research assistant 24 hours after the online research session to give them a chance to ask any questions.
  3. Participants will then receive an email a week later containing a link to a brief online follow-up survey, which should take around 5 minutes.
  4. Within a few days of that email, participants will receive a second check-in call from the research assistant to give them another chance to ask any questions.

Participants will be compensated for their time with a shopping voucher, sent via email. 

All data collected will be stored securely and no participant will be identifiable from any reports arising from this project.

The conditions of our ethics approval for studies of this kind are that we are unable to include people who have:

  • previously attempted suicide
  • had active plans to attempt suicide in the last 6 months
  • been bereaved by the suicide of a close friend or relative in the past 6 months.

 

If you have any questions you can email: DoP.MTAS@ucl.ac.uk

Ethical approval: This study has been approved by the UCL Research Ethics Committee: Project ID: 0289 

Funder: UCL Grand Challenge of Mental Health & Wellbeing

UCL Grand Challenges

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