Maintaining Confidentiality and Integrity in Qualitative Research

This article discusses the importance of maintaining confidentiality and integrity in qualitative research. It covers actions that can be taken by researchers to ensure privacy and confidentiality, and the importance of data integrity. The article also highlights the ethical challenges faced by researchers and the need for proper training and professional standards.

Report

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Discussion on Actions that can be taken for research.....................................................................1
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................6

Introduction
Considering about the qualitative studies, there is a need to focus on interaction that is set
in between the researchers and the participants mainly. This is considered to be a major ethical
challenges and it involves the different studies as well. The formulation is based on focusing
over the specific guidelines and the aim is to discuss about the development and conducting
qualitative studies that are needed for the role of researchers. The purpose includes the literature
review which needs to be carried out with all the necessary skills and the stringent supervision. It
can help in extracting a better and reliable information that is set from the qualitative studies.
The important issue which concerns privacy is about the research participants and how these
people are able to handle privacy. There is a need to consider about interactions that are seen in
between the researchers and the people who are participating which could be majorly
challenging. The formulations are based on handling the ethical guidelines and planning about
the development through explicitly handling the conducting of different qualitative studies. The
researchers tend to face different challenges which are relevant to the anonymity, confidentiality
and the consents that are focusing on potential impact. (Denzin & Giardina, 2016). This would
also include the private and individually identifiable information which should be handled by the
investigators mainly.
Discussion on Actions that can be taken by researchers
With privacy and confidentiality, the confidentiality is considered to be important in
research. The privacy is assured with proper procedures of consent and maintaining
confidentiality of data takes more effort. Hence, the information needs to be gathered with
individuals handling the disclosure in relationship of trust. The easy way to protect the
confidentiality is to collect the anonymous data (Hashem et al., 2015). Here, the data is not

connected to information that can identify about the individual participants. The protocol needs
to justify why it is necessary to collect information about the individual. It includes the list of
identifiers that you will collect and describe information of how it is collected. The consent
forms include information for helping participants to understand how it will be used and consent
forms should also state about accessing the data. The discussion is about protecting the policies
and how one will prevent information from being disclosed (Filkins et al., 2016). The example is
about the breach of confidentiality which may be needed in case of suspected abuse or if there
are imminent risks for the harm done to self or the others. The research involves the information
about handling the illegal behaviors which require a Certificate of Confidentiality to protect
mainly against the disclosures to law enforcement agencies.
For the qualitative researchers, it is important to maintain respondent confidentiality with
focusing on the standards that are set for the detailed accounts will help in presenting certain
challenges which are completely unique. The deductive disclosures are important for internal
confidentiality which occurs when the traits of individuals or the groups completely make them
identifiable in the research reports. The qualitative studies contain the description for the study
participants, where confidentiality breach is through deductive disclosures that is of a major
particular concern. Hence, to focus on addressing the confidentiality issue, the socialists need to
make assurance for the defined confidentiality standards along with differently working on
characteristics like the occupation, city and the background. (Lunnay, Borlagdan, McNaughton,
D., & Ward, 2015). The qualitative research includes multiple socially constructed ways to know
about concepts of validity with enhancement by using strategies that will boost up the credibility.
The research requires to work on transcribed interviews for validating the different procedures
which could be used for handling the opportunities of learning. The support systems are

important to research about policies that concern harassment and problems with the different
payments and benefits.
The other factor to maintain confidentiality is through the data cleaning where the
researchers remove the identifiers to create a clean data set. This data set does not contain any
information which will identify the respondents like their name or address. The addresses can be
delivered and so for the qualitative and quantitative data sets (Brydon, Rector & Stevens, 2015).
However, unlike changing the specific name, the change of additional details could be done to
render the data which is unidentifiable to alter and then handle the data. Here, the focus is on
confidentiality and maintaining the research designs through ethically handling the research of
professional standards. The strategies to ensure the confidentiality includes the researcher’s own
awareness with focusing over the better-quality standards. The research face different ethical
challenges which generally includes the different designing and the reporting processes with
informed consents, and potential impact on participants. The research should include the people,
where the participants are valued, and their personal information is kept secret (Mayer, 2015).
This ensures a establishment of an honest and reciprocal relationship with the participants. With
all the strategies that are important for handling confidential issues, there are small number of
participants who need to work on a proper and details descriptions which will be helpful for the
participants. The other strategy could be to ensure confidentiality with validation process of data.
The integrity in research is to characterize both individuals and the institutions in which
they are working. Hence, there is a need to focus on intellectual honesty for proposing,
performing and reporting the research (Fouché & Chubb, 2017). It will include accuracy to
represent contributions for research proposals and the reports that will lead to fairness in peer
review. The transparency in conflicts of interest and the protection of human rights help in

adhering to mutual responsibility between the investigators and the research factors. It helps in
promoting interactions mainly done in between the trainees and mentors. The decisions about
authorship are anticipated at its best for the outset of projects. The peer review functions help in
maintaining the excellence along with pervading a peer review system. As per the research, the
intellectual property provisions and secrecy allows for the patents as well as licensure to
encourage private investments in research. The investigator also need to focus on handling the
public funds for public goods (Bromley. Mikesell, Jones & Khodyakov, 2015). The checking and
rechecking of the data is to interpret about the validity of data along with submitting the results
for peer review with further confirmations about the factors that the findings are sound. The
procedures can value from field to field where the methods of high energy physics ensures the
integrity of data which is different from the clinical psychologists. Some of the practices which
include the field specific methods can be embodied in the technical manuals, journal guidelines
or the publications. This will help in setting a collective knowledge that is held in common by
researchers. The examples include the reviewing of data with other research groups, and then
sharing or finding the results of the same. The importance of the methods is about signaling in
some publications by methods section that will help in describing the procedures which are used
for deriving a result (Mittelstadt & Floridi, 2016). In some of the print journals, methods sections
are seen to be squeezed by pressures so that there is a cut in costs. The reviewing of the research
questions have been framed and addressed to focus on original findings and to acknowledge the
previous work. The peer review is an effective tool for quality control which is also for
evaluating the researchers. It will help in judging the purposes of hiring and promotions, on the
basis of peer-reviewed journals. The relationship nd intimacy is generally established through
focusing and highlighting on the ranges related to ethical concerns. The challenges are related to

situations which might tend to emerge if there are researchers to deal with other contradicting
issues. The confidentiality generally involves about minimizing the intrusion possibility with
autonomy of study participants that is set by all means. The informed consent is considered to be
a major part of the ethical research that requires to specify about the advancement of data, in the
way how it will be collected and then used as well.
Through qualitative research methods, there are in-depth interviews and ethnography
where the researchers have the privilege to view the study participants lives and experiences. The
researchers face unique and ambiguous ethical dilemma in the dissemination of the rich data.
The conflicts of interest in research can be handled through collaboration between the academia
and industry. Such collaborations will involve the consulting and advisory services with proper
development of specific inventions. The research should disclose all the conflicts of interest
where one should also work voluntarily from research. It will include research in scientific
institutions, professional societies and the professional embracement of conflicts of interest. To
maintain integrity, the adherence to mutual responsibility will help to build up a proper scientific
and interpersonal interactions (Mulligan, Koopman & Doty, 2016). These will include the
reflection among the team members, fairness in assignment of responsibilities as well as other
accountability standards. The informed consents are considered to be a major part for the ethical
research which needs to be carried out in different fields and sectors. The research is about
specifying the advancements where the data needs to be collected and researched about how they
are used. The focus is on clarifications which needs to involve the nature of study with
participants holding a potential role that is for identifying researchers and financing body. In
qualitative analysis, the data needs to be collected with focus on different interviews and
narratives that are important for assisting the researchers about noting down the informant

feelings along with their interpretations. The data collection is about focusing on not only
guaranteeing about the confidentiality with recording the field notes to assist participants for
deciding on what one wish on the records.
Conclusion
The observations for the data integrity principle includes ensuring advancements that will
require a major focus on the research data setup and integrity standards. There is a major
importance of training that will help in ensuring about how the researchers are able to receive
training for proper conduct of research. (Cunliffe & Scaratti, 2017). The training is important
with opportunities to learn about proper data management. The other action that could be taken is
through producing a clear and upto-date standards for data. Here, the shared responsibility of
research enterprise would require a sustainable environment which will support the efforts of
researchers to ensure integrity. The research institutions, sponsors and the professional societies
should work on the development and dissemination of professional standards to ensure integrity
of research data. It will involve the communities with decentralized approach that is important
for data management practices (Teitcher et al., 2015). The applications of professional standards
can be complicated where the investigators need to bring in different practices for projects. Apart
from this, the research institutions, professional societies need to ensure about contributions that
are done data professionals to maintain integrity.
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