Urinalysis and Self-Reporting - Participation

CCSA is recruiting new sites interested in implementing the Community Urinalysis and Self-Report Project (CUSP) at a harm reduction site in their region. Funds are available for participant honoraria, urinalysis costs and research assistance.

Participation entails:

• Identifying local data collection sites such as harm reduction supply distribution sites or observed consumption sites;
• Obtaining local research ethics board approval;
• Recruiting interested clients and collecting survey responses and urine samples to be sent to Lifelabs, Ontario, for analysis;
• Analyzing and interpreting survey and urinalysis results;
• Communicating results back to harm reduction site clients and staff; and
• Contributing to cross-Canada reporting on drug use trends by sharing results with CCSA.
   

CCSA supports participating sites throughout these stages. CCSA has also created project toolkit materials for each stage to make implementation easy and comparable across sites.

The project toolkit includes:

• A project manual: a step-by-step guide for project implementation
• Standardized short- and long-form surveys: the short-form survey contains core questions on drug use in the past three days. The long-form survey includes additional questions that sites can choose to include based on local needs and emerging issues.
• Instructions for collecting survey data and urine samples: a step-by-step guide for participant recruitment and data collection
• Verbal consent form: a template for obtaining informed consent from participants that allows participants to stay anonymous
• Ethics review board materials: a template study protocol and information to complete research ethics review board application forms
• Electronic survey file: an online form that allows for online survey administration or for online data entry if participants completed surveys on paper
• Template data analysis spreadsheet: a tool to assist with cleaning, linking and analyzing survey and urinalysis data
• Template for local reports: a template to assist sharing results with harm reduction site staff, clients and community
   

If you are interested in participating or would like more information about CUSP or the project toolkit materials, please email cusp-pcua@ccsa.ca.