2.1 Participants
This quantitative, cross-sectional study employed the survey model. While calculating the sample size, t2*s2 / d2 formula was used in accordance with the principle of “the dependent variable is quantitative in groups where the population is not known.”.20 For this research, Karataş’s work21 was taken as a reference study. In Karataş’s research, the standard deviation value of the Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) is given as 1.10. Since the difference between dependent variables and independent variables was to be investigated, Cohen’s effect size was taken as 0.2 in this formula. Accordingly, when the values were placed in the formula (t = 1.96, s = 1.10, d = 0.2), the minimum sample size (n) was calculated as 106 people.
For sampling, the simple random sampling method was used. Since the government of the Republic of Turkey advised the public to minimize face-to-face interaction and isolate themselves at home, the participants were invited to the study electronically. Participants filled out the questionnaires through the online survey platform.
2.2 Ethics
The participants were informed about the study in writing. Partaking was voluntary, and confidentiality was guaranteed. The data used during the secondary supplementary analysis did not contain any identifying details about the participants. All participants were provided with the first author’s and supervisors’ contact information. Written permission was obtained from the Scientific Research Platform of the Ministry of Health prior to the study (2020-06-27T20_36_13). Ethical approval was granted by the regional ethical review board (no. 28.09.2020/95674917-108.99-E.33264). In accordance with the Helsinki Declaration criteria, the participants were informed with an informative text included on the data collection form, and the data were collected from “volunteering participants who reported that they did not have any psychiatric disease diagnosed by the physician.”