Dr. Kim Kuypers

Principal Investigator

Maggie Kiraga

Director of Research       

Sarah Paschall

Psychedelic Researcher     

Sonia Brodie

Research Advisor    

Eesmyal Santos-Brault

CEO

With special thanks to:

Dr. Jim Fadiman

Information about the research 

Quantified Citizen invites you to take part in this study, Personality and Drug Use which is a mini-study launched on the Quantified Citizen mobile app. The research will take place under supervision of Dr. Kim Kuypers from Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

What will happen? 

Participants will be asked once to fill in a brief demographic survey, one standardized survey assessing personality, and two custom questionnaires regarding substance use and the potential changes in personality.

Time commitment 

The study typically takes between 15-20 minutes. Participants will be asked to complete all the scales only once.

Participant’s rights 

We will ask you to submit the consent form before starting the study. If during the participation process you decide that you want to withdraw from the study, you are free to do so. If you have any questions as a result of reading this information sheet, you should contact the research team at Quantified Citizen (studies@quantifiedcitizen.com) before enrolling in the study.

Benefits and risks

Within the 12 months from the study closing date and given that you have completed all mandatory assessments, you will be provided with a summary report (tables and visualizations) not only on your raw, personal scores but also on how your scores compare to participants with similar and different substance use histories.

This study possesses no known actual risk. There is the possibility for individual discomfort in answering questions, however we just ask for truthful responses to questions about past actions and traits.

Confidentiality/Anonymity

All information obtained during the study will be entirely anonymous. You will never be asked to provide your real name, address, or date of birth. The Quantified Citizen app will not have access to any of your personal identifying information. You will get a unique, 12 word, randomly generated username when you sign up to the QC app and your identity will remain anonymous. Please write down this username and keep it in a secure location. If for any reason you no longer have access to your QC account, and you do not remember your username, QC will not be able to regenerate your account. All of the data entered into the Quantified Citizen app will be encrypted and stored on servers located in Canada. Only authorized QC staff can access server logs based on their role and a need-to-know basis in order to fulfill their duties. Anonymous data will be made accessible to all researchers involved with this study. The anonymous data may be accessible to other researchers in the future.

Why is this research important?

It is important to study psychedelics due to their increased popularity across the globe, and their potential ability to affect changes in personality, which are related to one’s susceptibility to mental illness. Similarly, very little is known about how the past experience with other illicit substances relates (correlates) to the current personality profile and changes in personality that might have occurred over time.

Ethical approval

This research was reviewed and approved by the Ethical Review Committee Psychology and Neuroscience (ERCPN), Maastricht, The Netherlands.

For further information

We will be glad to answer your questions about this study at any time. Please do not hesitate to contact the involved researchers, Kim Kuypers at fpn-pim_P138@maastrichtuniversity.nl, Maggie Kiraga at maggie@quantifiedcitizen.com or the Quantified Citizen team at  studies@quantifiedcitizen.com. If you ask a question, we will be able to view your email address. However, your email address will not be linked to your data in any way.

All information obtained during the study will be entirely anonymous. All digital data collection will be self-administered. You will get a unique, randomly generated username and your identity will remain anonymous. Please write down this username and keep it in a secure location. You will need it to login into the app should you lose your phone as well as to access your individual data summary and aggregated data. If for any reason you no longer have access to your QC account, and you do not remember your username, QC will not be able to regenerate your account.

You will never be asked to provide your real name, address, or date of birth. Averaged group data may be published or publicly presented, but it will not be possible to identify individual participants from this data. The Quantified Citizen app will not have access to any of your personal identifying information. Quantified Citizen will only access IP addresses from server logs for security and quality control and will delete them every 48 hours to limit indirect identifiers. Only authorized QC staff can access server logs based on their role and a need-to-know basis in order to fulfill their duties. IP addresses are not included in the data that will be analyzed in this study.

All of the data you enter into the Quantified Citizen app will be encrypted and stored in perpetuity on servers located in Canada. Anonymous data will be accessible to all researchers involved with this study. The data may be accessible to other researchers in the future. Any data you have previously entered into the app regarding the microdosing study will be used in addition to any data you enter in the future.

Data will be kept for 5 years following publication of the research at which point the data on the external hard drive and university’s server will be wiped clean.