NEW BLOG FOR BEIJING

OKAY! I have found a blog space that I can use while in China. It's not as flashy as Blogger, but it's accessible! From now on, please direct yourself to -->

http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/~ewan

See you there!

IRB Success!

Yippy hooray!! Just got the GREAT news that my PPD study has passed UM IRB! Even better, it was found to be exempt from review by the IRB! That's because we won't be able to link subjects at all to their ID numbers, mainly because everything will be in Chinese.
I was so worried about this part because I wouldn't be able to start collecting data before the approval. Cheryl asked them on Wednesday to please expedite the process, and she was also able to change the original application with our revised questionnaire, so now we don't even have to amend anything! YAY!

We have had the greatest fortune with getting this study through. To think, I made up this study in February, and we submitted to IRBMED in mid-March (after IRB approval at Beijing University First Hospital...down the hallway), and now, wa-LAH! ~~~\(^O^)/~~~

Blog Access in China?

My sister in Shanghai has not been able to access this website at all. I'm wondering whether this Blogspot site is censored. Doing a basic search of the internet (e.g. this 2005 article off BBC, which is blocked in China) there does seem to be some issue. I will have to look into other options for keeping my experiences in the open.

Another 2003 article specifically on the censorship of Blogspot.

IRB Approval Pending

Things have been kind of slow with this project since we submitted our IRB application to UM-IRBMED. We received approval from the Beijing University First Hospital IRB a few weeks ago, and so stuck in our UM app immediately. According to my intl epid prof, it depends on the situation whether internationl instition approval must come before UM approval. That was the case of ours, but in some instances, UM IRB can process contingent on foreign approval. It's all very grey.

It'll take about a month to go through, but is on the expedited track, I think. We need approval before we can collect any data. Even more important for me, we need to submit an IRB amendment to add my questions of interest to the questionnaire (QQ) as well. For the time being, I'm looking to create an amended version of the QQ to be ready once we get approval.

Progress & Action Plan

Cheryl, Yasmin and I meet every Wednesday morning to talk about the progress of the projects, exchange ideas, and assign "homework." I love these meetings because they make me feel productive, with tangible outcomes. Last week we picked through the first draft of our PPD questionnaire (QQ) and came up with lots of points to check on (e.g. maternity leave, religion, race in China). Today I made a list of questions about the QQ to be sent to Beijing for clarification and addition to the QQ.

From now until departure, our action plan is to revise the QQ for both studies (my depression and Yasmin's optimism, heheh). Translate QQ into Chinese. Make clinical abstraction forms. Think about our analysis plan. This is exciting!

Next week, data will be collected for the matching U.S. cohort of the optimism study. I'll help collect data at the UM hospital to see how things work in English first, before getting dumped into Chinese.

Study Objectives

My research topic of interest this summer is postpartum depression in Chinese women. There has been some recent work done in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but surprisingly little in mainland China. The paucity of literature makes this basic prevalence study quite exciting. We will also investigate sociocultural risk factors and any protective factors against PPD that may exist in the Chinese culture.

From my background reading, it seems that depression is now considered to be a continuous, rather than a discrete, disease. Therefore, postpartum depression would not be a distinct disease classification, but rather, the conditions of the postpartum period would be triggers for a depressive episode. Indeed, the greatest risk factors for PPD are an individual or family history of depression and symptoms of depression/anxiety during pregnancy. Associated risk factors are race, financial stress, and low self-esteem.

A big protective risk factor is the presence of social support, and I hope to explore that within the lens of the Chinese postpartum practice of zuoyue (Mandarin) or peiyue (Cantonese). I am personally interested in studying the risk factors of financial stress (wealth gaps in China highly noted after economic liberalization), ethnic origin (parellel to the American risk factor of race), and effects of the one-child social policy on individual family planning and mental health. The last, of course, will be impossible to study rigorously in the current research plan, but we may find associations, for example, with history of abortion and expectations for the baby's gender. (Link for more modern China propaganda posters)

IRB Snafoo

Today was the goal for submitting our PPD protocol in for IRB approval, but I've learned from Cheryl's email today that we have struck an obstacle. In these international collaborations, it seems that we need IRB approval first from the host institution, in this case Beijing University, before we can process IRB approval at UM. Darn it! So Cheryl's trying to get all the info to the other side as quickly as possible. Oh, I hope it goes through!!

Note: IRB stands for Institutional Review Board, and it must approve any research projects involving human subjects research to ensure that certain ethical guidelines are being followed.

Research Topic & IRB

Wow, I'm finally home in New Orleans for spring break (see PHAST) after a maddening late-night dash to get my background/introduction written and sent to Cheryl, my PI and MHIRT mentor.

Our main research project has been the role of optimism/pessimism on pregnancy outcomes, with cross-cultural implications across China, Ghana, and the United States. A few weeks ago, the outcome of postpartum depression was thrown into the mix, and since it didn't fall into the optimism protocol, we had to file a new one. This is great experience...drafting a real live protocol (i.e. attached to money) to be submitted for IRB approval. The goal is to get the IRB app in this week so that the months-long approval process can be settled before I start the research in Beijing.

I'm really happy with where we're going with the project...more on that later. (^O^)