Principal investigators

Dr. Karin Matko, Contemplative Studies Centre, University of Melbourne, AU; University of Technology Chemnitz, DE

Dr. Heena Kamble, PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, IN

Dr. Ivan Nyklíček, Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Tilburg University, NL

Dr. Jesus Montero-Marin, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, UK

Dr. Javier Garcia Campayo, Department of Psychiatry, University of Zaragoza, ES

Dr. Katherine Chen, English Language Centre, University of Macao, CN

Dr. Liudmila Gamaiunova, Institute for Social Sciences of Religions, Université de Lausanne, CH

Dr. Marcelo Demarzo, Department of Preventive Medicine, Federal University of São Paulo, BR

Dr. Masaru Kanetkusi, Department of Clinical Psychology, Hosei University, JP

Dr. Takeshi Hamamura, Curtin School of Population Health, Curtin University Perth, AU

Dr. Nicholas Van Dam, Contemplative Studies Centre, University of Melbourne, AU

Summary of participation in the study

This study will involve the following for you:

• Completing an online questionnaire once (approx. 15-20 min or 35-45 min) on your meditation practice, personality, and motivation.

• Completing the same online questionnaire again (approx. 15 min or 30-40 min) after 6 months and after 12 months. Good data requires repeated participation. Hence, it is essential that you complete these follow-up questionnaires as well.
  

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

You may participate in the study if you are over 18 years of age, are interested in meditation or have been meditating regularly, and have given written informed consent to participate in the study.

Compensation/Benefits

This study will allow for a deeper understanding of meditation in its many forms. You will have the opportunity to receive a personal evaluation of your personality and/or participate in a lottery once you have completed all three questionnaires. There will be a draw in each participating country for 6 vouchers with a value of €100, which you can either use yourself or donate to your local meditation community. In addition, we will donate €3 for each completed second or third questionnaire to GiveWell's All Grants Fund (https://www.givewell.org/all-grants-fund), which supports programs that have the most impact in improving global health and well-being on a large scale.

Disadvantages/Consequences

While the risks associated with completing online surveys are minimal, there is a small risk that the content of the questions may lead to mild psychological discomfort or distress. If you are distressed or negatively affected by any aspect of this study, you can contact local mental health support services.

If you are in Australia, you can contact services such as Lifeline (13 11 14), Beyond Blue (1300 22 46 36) or SANE (1800 187 263).

If you are in the United States, you can contact services such as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255), Crisis Text Line (Text ‘HELLO’ to 741741) or SAMSHA (1-800-662-4357) for a treatment referral.

If you are in the United Kingdom, you can contact services such as Samaritans (116 123), Saneline (0300 304 7000), or SHOUT (text 85258).

Right of withdrawal

We ask for your consent to participate in the study. Your participation is completely voluntary. You may withdraw from the survey at any time without giving any reason and without any disadvantage to you. If you wish to withdraw, simply stop answering questions and close the survey page.

Results of the project

We will announce the results via our mailing list (https://go.unimelb.edu.au/wj9i) and social media accounts (https://psychologicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/CSC#subscribe). A one-page plain language summary of the study along with the final report and any academic publications will be made available via the study website (https://world-meditation-survey.org/). You can register your interest in being contacted when the results become available.

Project funding

This project is funded internally by The Contemplative Studies Centre at The University of Melbourne, which is funded by a generous philanthropic donation from the Three Springs Foundation Pty Ltd. It is further funded externally by The Mind & Life Europe Francisco J. Varela Award and a donation by the Steffen Lohrer Foundation.

All personal information will be kept strictly confidential. Only persons directly involved in the study (see above) will have access to personal data. All measures concerning data management and processing will be conducted in alignment with the EU general data protection regulation.

The project is hosted on the survey platform SoSciSurvey where the researchers signed a data processing agreement (https://www.soscisurvey.de/help/doku.php/en:general:dsgvo). SoSci Survey provides a project-internal participants administration function. Upon registration, you will automatically receive a unique ID (serial number) that will allow to match your responses from the different survey waves. This ID does not allow consolidation with an email address or the identity of the user by the researchers. However, to enable this anonymous panel function, SoSciSurvey will store an email/user-ID-assignment in a different database so that users can get an individual link in their serial mail. Upon deleting the email addresses, this assignment will be deleted as well (https://www.soscisurvey.de/help/doku.php/en:general:privacy).

Data will be collected and stored on the servers of SoSciSurvey. The survey data collected will be stored and processed without reference to participants’ identity. The data are pseudonymized for researchers as they can only access the participant ID. Technically, they are anonymized as researchers have no access to a key that would allow to re-identify a participant behind their pseudonym/ID and none of the captured data elements allows for de-pseudonymization. Only Karin Matko will have access to the survey data on SoSciSurvey. She will download it regularly during the data collection period and will store the data on the internal servers of the University of Melbourne. She will make the anonymized encrypted data available to the other researchers involved in this study using a cloud service.

Only anonymized data will be used for statistical analysis and may be made available to a scientific audience. According to current scientific practice, a carefully curated anonymized data set will be made openly available in a data repository for transparency and future scientific use. Any other data will be stored for a period of ten years and then destroyed.

You are free to withdraw from the survey at any point. If you decide to do so, the information you provided up until than point will not be stored. After the survey has ended, it will no longer be possible to delete your data, as the data can then no longer be linked to you.

If you decide to participate in the lottery, you will be asked to enter your email address at the end of the survey. This email address will be stored separately from your other data and cannot be linked to your responses by the researchers.

We thank you for your interest in the study and would be very grateful if you would support our research with your participation. 

This project has human research ethics approval from The University of Melbourne HREC #31492. If you have any concerns or complaints about the conduct of this research project, which you do not wish to discuss with the research team, you should contact the Research Integrity Administrator, Office of Research Ethics and Integrity, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010. Tel: +61 3 8344 1376 or Email: research-integrity@unimelb.edu.au. All complaints will be treated confidentially. In any correspondence, please provide the name of the research team and/or the name or ethics ID number of the research project.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us using the contact details below.

Address of the study management

Dr. Karin Matko

Contemplative Studies Centre | Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry, and Health Sciences

Level 1, Melbourne Connect (Building 290), 700 Swanston Street

The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010 Australia

karin.matko@unimelb.edu.au