Exploring thoughts of self-harm and suicide in daily life: a smartphone study

About the study

We want to understand how thoughts about self-harm and suicide change over short periods of time (hours/days/weeks). We also want to look at factors that predict these changes. This study will help us to learn more about self-harm and better support people in the future.

What will it involve?

The study involves completing a short survey, multiple times throughout the day on your smartphone.

The study consists of the following steps:
1) Completing an online survey. This will contain some questionnaires asking about your feelings and behaviour and some more general information about yourself.

2) An online briefing with a researcher to answer questions and help you get ready for the study.

3) Completing short surveys on your smartphone (2-3 minutes each). You will receive 6 surveys a day for 14 days. This lets us look at changes in thoughts and feelings over short periods of time. We will also send you a research watch in the post. Wearing this during the study will let us look at how factors like sleep and heart rate affect how you feel.

4) Completing a short online survey at the end of the study to tell us how you found taking part.