Emotional distress among frontline research staff.

Social Science & Medicine
Megan NguyenRebecca Fielding-Miller

Abstract

Public health research frequently deals with sensitive topics. A growing body of evidence suggests that frontline researchers who elicit or process participant's traumatic experiences are themselves at risk of developing emotional distress or secondary trauma from daily immersion in these data. This both threatens a study's data quality and calls into question how the harms and benefits of conducting research are distributed across a study team. The objective of this study was to explore how frontline research staff in Eswatini experience and process emotional distress as part of their daily work and to describe potential strategies for resilience and coping using qualitative research methods. We conducted 21 in-depth interviews with informants who had worked in data collection, data entry, and transcription on a number of sensitive topics, including HIV, sex work, and LGBT health. We found that emotional distress is a salient experience among frontline research staff working in Eswatini. This distress stems from conducting research against a generalized backdrop of high rates of HIV, violence, and poverty, particularly since research staff are drawn from affected communities and have their own firsthand knowledge of the phenom...Continue Reading

References

Jun 6, 2002·Lancet·Mary Ellsberg, Lori Heise
May 25, 2005·American Journal of Community Psychology·Jacob Kraemer Tebes
Oct 2, 2014·Culture, Health & Sexuality·Sarah W BeckhamDeanna L Kerrigan
Jan 21, 2016·Journal of Traumatic Stress·Jim McLennanLyndsey Wright

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