Welcome Script
Hi, my name is Cara, and I am the principal investigator of this research.
I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer when I was 36 years old, and my kids were just under 1 and 4. As a result of this early onset cancer diagnosis, I experienced debilitating fear about the potential of not seeing my children grow up, and my children not having me to grow up with. Motivated by these emotions, I used the expertise I had to create something to leave behind for my children in the event that I would not be with them as they grew up. I have a PhD in social psychology, with years of experience teaching and conducting research, including research in the area of interpersonal closeness generation. So, I used writing prompts adapted from well-established closeness induction exercises, culminating in a book to provide the opportunity for my children to know me and feel close to me as they grow up.
The process of creating and awareness that I have this book reduced some of the fear and anxiety I regularly experience about that possibility, about that possibility of leaving my children before I was planning to. As part of my experience with cancer, I made connections with others in the young adult/early-onset cancer community, many of whom also had young children and also shared similar fears surrounding their young children. Not only did I learn that they shared similar fears, but also learned that many parents in this position want to leave something behind for their children but they’re unable to do so out of uncertainty of what to do, difficulty finding the time, or difficulty facing the emotions involved. This is where this study comes in. I’m very lucky to have survived cancer and to have the opportunity to bring my life experience into the lab. In this study, we want to know if making a document like the one I made is a positive experience for others, like it was for me. In order to test this, we’ve created an app, a smart phone app. It’s called chuisle mo chroi, which is a Gaelic term which translates to pulse of my heart or my beloved, and its often used to describe the feeling that parents have about their relationship with their children. So, we’re looking for a small group of participants to help us test this app and see if it actually is a positive experience. So, we’re looking for people who were diagnosed with cancer at or under age 50, who have at least one child under the age of 12, and are currently or previously diagnosed with cancer.
For this first step of testing, we are recruiting only those who identify as mothers. Although we do think the app will be helpful for all parents and even other family members, we need to narrow it down for this first step of the research and we do have plans to broaden our group of participants at a later stage. Participants will be invited to first complete a questionnaire that will take 15 to 20 minutes. Then, they will be asked to download the smartphone app. The app will contain various writing prompts. We ask you to complete these prompts regularly, for example 1 or 2 a day, but you can work on whatever schedule works for you. You will have 3 months to complete the prompts, complete as many as you want to. You can write as little or as much as you want, and you can skip any that you want. Once you are finished, the app will generate a shareable PDF document containing all of your responses and you can title the document whatever you want, and save it to your own device, computers, and share it with anyone that you want to. Once you are all done, we will also ask you to complete another 15-minute questionnaire. All participants who complete the study will be provided a gift card as an incentive for their participation, given the time that you will commit to helping us test this app. So, if you are interested or if have any questions to decide if you might be interested you can contact us at pulseofmyheart@acadiau.ca. The first step if you do decide that you are interested is for us to ask you a couple of quick screening question by email. If you do meet the study eligibility criteria, then we’d send you the first survey. Once you complete that first survey, then you’d download the app, have 3 months to complete the app. Then we ask you to complete a second survey. There would be regular reminders for all of these things. So, if you’re interested, first step please email us, and that’s it, thank you!