Confidentiality {27}
RECRUITMENT
The confidentiality of participant data and identity will be protected in accordance with the University of Calgary ethics guidelines throughout the recruitment, assessment, treatment, and data analysis. All members of the study team, including peer counsellors, will sign a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement prior to their involvement in the study. Peer counsellors will be required to sign non-disclosure agreements, and instructed to store participant identifying information on a secure password-protected device to which they have sole access. All participant identifying information will be password-protected and stored on secure servers at the University of Calgary, separate from anonymized data.Participants will be informed of the limits to confidentiality as part of the informed consent process. Participants will also be informed that absolute confidentiality cannot be guaranteed in a remote environment, as information transmitted via the internet or using personal devices (e.g. the participant’s cell phone) may not be completely secure.