Parent Preferences of Pediatric Alopecia Areata Patients' Treatments

Thank you for agreeing to take part in this survey. This study is being conducted to understand the preferences of caregivers of pediatric patients with alopecia areata in regards to benefits and risks of alopecia areata treatments.

You are invited to participate in this survey because you care for a child diagnosed with alopecia areata.

This survey is part of a research project that aims to understand how caregivers value possible benefits and risks of alopecia areata treatments. There are three sections in this survey that will take approximately 30 minutes to complete:

Section 1 will ask you to provide some information about your child's experience with alopecia areata.
Section 2 will ask you some questions about different aspects of treatments for alopecia areata. Within this section, you will also be asked to choose between two treatment options. This is a common method used by researchers to better understand what aspects of a treatment matter to most participants.
Section 3 will ask you some questions that will help us better understand your responses in Section 2.

Your responses will be private, and your name will never be identified with any of your answers.

Your responses will be kept anonymous and will only be used for research purposes.

There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. We are interested in understanding your perspective as a caregiver of a child with alopecia areata.

You are being invited to participate in a research study titled "Parent preferences for alopecia areata treatments: A discrete choice experiment". This study is led by Dr. Maryanne Senna at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center, Dr. Leah Belazarian at UMass Chan, and their respective research teams. You were selected to participate in this study because you care for a child with alopecia areata. The purpose of this research study is to better understand how caregivers of children with alopecia areata select treatments and what trade-offs caregivers are willing to make. If you agree to take part in this study, you will be asked to complete a 20-30 minute survey/questionnaire. This survey/questionnaire will ask you to choose between two or more treatment options. This survey/questionnaire will also ask about sociodemographic information, your child's alopecia areata characteristics including the degree of hair loss and whether eyelash or eyebrow loss is present, your child's current and previous treatments, and your comfortability with medical information. You may not directly benefit from this research; however, we hope that your participation in the study may help inform dermatologists on how to incorporate individual caregiver needs in the shared decision-making process. To the best of our ability your answers in this study will remain anonymous. We will minimize any risks to breach of anonymity by storing completed surveys in a secure office and immediately disposing of completed surveys after statistical analysis is completed. You will not need to put your name or contact information on the survey/questionnaire.

Your participation in this study is completely voluntary and you can withdraw at any time.

If you have questions about this project or if you have a research-related problem, you may contact the researcher(s), Chino Ogbutor or Kristen Kelley at 781-744-1375.

By proceeding with the survey/questionnaire, you are indicating that you are at least 18 years old, have read and understood this consent form and agree to participate in this research study. Please keep this page for your records and return the survey/questionnaire to the researchers. Please DO NOT write your name on the survey/questionnaire. Please complete this survey only once.

You have selected an option that triggers this survey to end right now.

To save your responses and end the survey, click the 'End Survey' button below. If you have selected the wrong option by accident and/or wish to return to the survey, click the 'Return and Edit Response' button.