Privacy Information

Consent to Allow PainTRAINER to Collect Information

If you choose to use painTRAINER, you agree to allow painTRAINER researchers to collect and store your email address, if you choose to provide one. You can choose not to provide an email address. If you make that choice, the program will not send you emailed reminders to practice and to complete sessions.

If you choose to use painTRAINER, you also agree to allow painTRAINER researchers to collect, store, and study information about how you use the program. As you use the program, it collects information about how much time you spend in the program, which pages you visit, and your responses to questions and exercises. There is no way to stop the program from collecting this information. If you do not want us to collect, store, and study information about how you use the program, then you will not be able to use painTRAINER.

The reason we study information about how people use painTRAINER is to learn how we can make the program better. In these studies, we combine information from many painTRAINER users. You will never be identified in any summary or description of what our studies find.

Who is Collecting this Information

This information is being collected by Dr. Christine Rini at Northwestern University (Chicago, IL, U.S.A.), Dr. Francis Keefe at Duke University (Durham, NC, U.S.A.), and People Designs, Inc., (Durham, NC, U.S.A., which is hosting the program and its information on their servers). Dr. Rini and Dr. Keefe may allow other investigators to use painTRAINER in their research. If you participate in a study being run by another investigator, that investigator and their study team will also have access to your information.

You may withdraw your consent for us to store information we hold about you at any time by contacting us at PainTRAINER@northwestern.edu.

Protection and Storage

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect is protected from misuse, loss, unauthorized access or disclosure. We have procedures in place that limit where and how it can be stored and who can access it. It will not be transferred from our sites unless we transfer it to an entity that uses security protections that are as strong as ours. We will not disclose your personal information to anybody else unless we are authorized to disclose it (for instance, to another investigator whose study you join) or unless we required to do so by law.

Retention Period

We will retain your information only for as long as required for the purpose it was collected. If you are using painTRAINER as part of a study, then most often this means we will retain it for at least three years after a study ends; the study end date will be on your informed consent form. If you are not using painTRAINER as part of a study, then we may store your information indefinitely. When we no longer need to retain your information, we will destroy using procedures that protect your privacy, in accordance with University policies.

Further Information or Complaints

Please contact Christine Rini, PhD, at christine.rini@northwestern.edu if you have questions about policies governing our collection, storage, and use of your personal information. If you want to file a complaint with the institutional review board that oversees the study in which you are enrolled, you can find contact information on the informed consent form for the study, or you can contact study staff to get that information.