My honours project is looking at chocolate and its effects on mood and need an appropriate study design to carry out this investigation, however the participants are to be healthy students from my university and many of the papers I have read look at long intervention studies. Previous experience of students commitment to a long study (i.e. week long) are not great so is there a possible other design. I am to investigate saliva cortisol levels of these participants as well as two questionnaires looking at mood and stress. Would a possible short one day intervention be suitable?
Dear Robbie,
Check these papers out and also their reference lists:
Article Chocolate versions of the Food Cravings Questionnaires: Asso...
Article Habitual chocolate consumption and risk of cardiovascular di...
Article Eating on impulse: Implicit attitudes, self-regulatory resou...
Article Healthcare Consciousness with Chocolates
Article How do chocolate lovers balance taste and ethical considerations?
Thanks, I proposed a study that you describe Mr Bianchi in which we have three groups, one eats the chocolate, another eats an apple and the last group eat nothing. The supervisors did not like the idea of having another variable as the chocolate we are testing is white chocolate infused with polyphenols, we must also use plain white chocolate as a control. Therefore it was decided to use an acute randomized crossover control study in which participants baseline measures are taking and are then giving one of the two chocolates. They come back in an hour and they fill out the same questionnaires (stress and mood) and saliva samples be taken(cortisol) a washout period of 1 day occurs and the participant comes back to get the other chocolate and again after the hour the measurements are taken. A big problem is the students and their commitment its understandable that they have other commitments, so I believe this approach will be more enticing and easy for the participants. I understand there is limitations to this procedure but the supervisors say to put them in them in the discussion. Thank you all for your input its just ethics I have to clear now :P
Thank you all again I appreciate it :)
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