Social research in stressful settings: difficulties for the sociologist studying the treatment of breast cancer

Abstract The paper examines some of the methodological and ethical issues which have arisen during the course of a three‐year study of breast cancer patients. It focuses particularly on some of the problems which may be encountered by medical sociologists working in settings which are stressful. The questions of involvement, detachment and personal responsibility, which generally need to be addressed in sociological research, have had an added significance because of the emotive nature of the subject matter and the method adopted to conduct the research.