Sensitive, Challenging, and Difficult Topics: Experiences and Practical Considerations for Qualitative Researchers
Open accessAbstract
Qualitative researchers often engage in work addressing challenging, difficult, or sensitive topics and are consequently exposed to the participants’ narratives which may be emotionally charged, distressing, or compromising. These narratives occasionally rest heavy on a researcher’s conscience or may linger in the mind. Much literature has assessed how best to keep participants safe, but less attention has been given to how we keep researchers safe. We therefore document the following: (1) Our experiences of the issues presented by undertaking qualitative research involving challenging, difficult, or sensitive topics; and (2) Practical principles devised to overcome these issues, ensuring safety and wellbeing amongst researchers engaging in these types of qualitative research. We provide guidance for qualitative researchers of all levels of experience and expertise on how best to protect and support themselves, their colleagues, and other collaborating research staff, when undertaking qualitative research which might otherwise feel uncomfortable or overwhelming to tackle.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Interviews were conducted by one researcher (MB), a chartered psychologist with expertise in qualitative methods and GDM research, and where required, an interpreter for women who did not speak English, following established protocols for sensitive research.
“All interviews were conducted by one researcher (MB), a chartered psychologist with expertise in qualitative methods and GDM research, and where required, an interpreter for women who did not speak English, following established protocols for sensitive research [34].”
From Preconception Perceptions, Knowledge and Behaviours of Women With Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A Qualitative Study (2026) · cites this paper as [34]
Cites
Ethics, Reflexivity, and “Ethically Important Moments” in Research
Guillemin, M., & Gillam, L. (2004) · Qualitative Inquiry · doi:10.1177/1077800403262360 · Cited by 2,671 · see citing works
Perinatal mental health: a review of progress and challenges
Howard, L. M., & Khalifeh, H. (2020) · World Psychiatry · doi:10.1002/wps.20769 · Cited by 1,118 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Similarly, rates of domestic violence and adverse childhood experiences are higher in perinatal populations than the general population (Howard & Khalifeh, 2020).”
BackgroundThe problem of appraising qualitative research
Dixon-Woods, M. (2004) · Quality and Safety in Health Care · doi:10.1136/qshc.2003.008714 · Cited by 653 · see citing works
Bracketing in Research: A Typology
Gearing, R. E. (2004) · Qualitative Health Research · doi:10.1177/1049732304270394 · Cited by 546 · see citing works
Researching the researcher-as-instrument: an exercise in interviewer self-reflexivity
Pezalla, A. E., Pettigrew, J., & Miller-Day, M. (2012) · Qualitative Research · doi:10.1177/1468794111422107 · Cited by 361 · see citing works
Developing Distress Protocols for Research on Sensitive Topics
Draucker, C. B., Martsolf, D. S., & Poole, C. (2009) · Archives of Psychiatric Nursing · doi:10.1016/j.apnu.2008.10.008 · Cited by 239 · see citing works
Issues in Qualitative Research on Sensitive Topics
Cowles, K. V. (1988) · Western Journal of Nursing Research · doi:10.1177/019394598801000205 · Cited by 206 · cited 1× · see citing works
“…discussed, laden with emotion and are immensely nostalgic (where positive), but can be harrowing (where negative) with the possibility of inducing short-term psychological anguish or distress when recounting the experiences (see also Cowles, 1988; Dickson-Swift et al., 2007, 2009; Smith, 2000).”
Background
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
George-Carey, R., Memtsa, M., Kent-Nye, F. E., Magee, L. A., Oza, M., Burgess, K., Goodhart, V., Jurković, D., & Silverio, S. A. (2024) · Women and Birth · doi:10.1016/j.wombi.2023.12.004 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Payne, E., Silverio, S. A., Fellows, R. E., Heywood, L. E., Burgess, K., Storey, C., Oza, M., Kent-Nye, F. E., Haddad, L., Sampson, A., et al. (2025) · Women and Birth · doi:10.1016/j.wombi.2025.101902 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Self-citationKent-Nye, F. E., Sheen, K. S., Burgess, K., Oza, M., Magee, L. A., Jurković, D., & Silverio, S. A. (2025) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/s12889-024-20882-2 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Payne, E., Schoenaker, D., Turner, K., Murphy, H. R., Skouteris, H., Ismail, K., Silverio, S. A., & Benton, M. (2026) · Health Expectations · doi:10.1111/hex.70617 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“All interviews were conducted by one researcher (MB), a chartered psychologist with expertise in qualitative methods and GDM research, and where required, an interpreter for women who did not speak English, following established protocols for sensitive research [34].”
Self-citation
- Authors
- Silverio, S. A., Sheen, K. S., Bramante, A., Knighting, K., Koops, T. U., Montgomery, E., November, L., Soulsby, L. K., Stevenson, J. H., Watkins, M., Easter, A., & Sandall, J.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- Liverpool John Moores University (GB)
- Humanitas San Pio X, Milan, Italy
- Edge Hill University (GB)
- University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (DE)
- University of Liverpool (GB)
- Nottingham Trent University (GB)
- London South Bank University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Silverio, Sergio A.
- ORCID
- Venue
- International Journal of Qualitative Methods
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2022-04
- Volume
- 21
- ISSN
- 1609-4069 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4294974629
- Cited by
- 140
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 38 · 2025: 54 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 14
- FWCI
- 36.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- International Journal of Qualitative Methods (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Edge Hill University Research Information Repository (Edge Hill University) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Research Open (London South Bank University) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Liverpool John Moores University (acceptedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- UWE Research Repository (UWE Bristol) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- The Lily Mae Foundation (LM21)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
- Social Sciences › Education › Qualitative Research Methods and Applications
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Data Analysis and Archiving
- Keywords
- sensitive topics, difficult topics, researcher well-being, researcher safety, researcher support, participant safety, researcher self-care
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
