“It's nice to be able to have the freedom to talk about how you feel when for so many years you've been squashed. But that's freedom as a woman to help other women”: Including families with experience of domestic violence in a longitudinal qualitative cohort study.

Families with experience of domestic violence are under-represented in cohort studies and little is known about best practice for including them in longitudinal research. This paper explores barriers and enablers to participation in qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) for these families through in-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 16) with specialist practitioners and survivors. This paper analyses participants’ views on the benefits of taking part in QLR; and best practice for recruitment, retention and data collection with families that have experience of domestic violence in QLR. We propose that trusted relationships; flexibility and personalisation; and co-production with people with lived experience are crucial to enabling participation across all phases of research.