Ethical Issues in the Reuse of Qualitative Data Perspectives From Literature, Practice, and Participants

• Published in: Qualitative health research Vol. 24; no. 1; pp. 102 - 113
• Main Authors: Yardley, Sarah J., Watts, Kate M., Pearson, Jennifer, Richardson, Jane C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.01.2014; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Anonymity; Consumers; Data collection; Data Collection - ethics; Data Collection - methods; Discussion groups; Ethical dilemmas; Ethics, Research; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Narratives; Professional ethics; Qualitative Research; Research methodology; Research Personnel - ethics; Research Personnel - psychology; Research Subjects - psychology; Reuse; Trust; relationships, research; ethics / moral perspectives; data collection and management; qualitative analysis
• ISSN: 1049-7323; 1552-7557
• DOI: 10.1177/1049732313518373

In this article, we explore ethical issues in qualitative secondary analysis through a comparison of the literature with practitioner and participant perspectives. To achieve this, we integrated critical narrative review findings with data from two discussion groups: qualitative researchers and research users/consumers. In the literature, we found that theoretical debate ran parallel to practical action rather than being integrated with it. We identified an important and novel theme of relationships that was emerging from the perspectives of researchers and users. Relationships were significant with respect to trust, sharing data, transparency and clarity, anonymity, permissions, and responsibility. We provide an example of practice development that we hope will prompt researchers to re-examine the issues in their own setting. Informing the research community of research practitioner and user perspectives on ethical issues in the reuse of qualitative data is the first step toward developing mechanisms to better integrate theoretical and empirical work.