The Qualitative Research Distress Protocol: A Participant-Centered Tool for Navigating Distress During Data Collection

Potential participant distress is often unaccounted for in qualitative research, where topics are not pre-determined to be categorically sensitive. Additionally, researchers sometimes project their own distress with sensitive topics onto participants, inappropriately truncating or terminating data collection encounters. As a result, researchers may over- or under-react to distress, in ways that fail to attune to and meet participants’ individual needs and that are not consistent within research teams. In our proposed framework of “The Participant-Researcher Dynamics of Distress,” we advance the Dynamic of Participant Centeredness to move beyond notions of categorical sensitivity, and in alignment with principles of research ethics, we developed the Qualitative Research Distress Protocol (QRDP). The QRDP is a comprehensive tool that we co-created with an oncology social worker, for a study exploring patients’ and clinicians’ experiences of virtual supportive cancer care during COVID-19. We elaborate on the use and application of the QRDP in team science, providing examples from our experience training novice researchers and conducting interviews for the Virtual Supportive Cancer Care Research Study. This novel protocol stands apart from other available distress protocols in taking a non-categorical approach to assessing participant sensitivity and addressing distress during qualitative interviews. The QRDP can be evaluated in and adapted for use in other qualitative research studies, especially those undertaken by collaborative and diverse research teams.