Doing qualitative research on suicide in a developing country: Practical and ethical challenges

Background: This article describes and discusses the challenges faced by researchers who conducted a qualitative interview study on attitudes toward suicide among the Baganda, Uganda. Many of the challenges addressed in this article have not been described earlier in suicide research conducted in the developing world. Aims: The aim of this study was to explore attitudes and cultural responses toward suicide among the Baganda, Uganda. Methods: Data were collected and analyzed using grounded theory. A total of 28 focus group discussions and 30 key informant interviews were conducted. Results: The findings of this study are organized under two broad categories: community access challenges and expectation challenges. Community access challenges entailed cultural, legal, rapport, informed consent, language, and other research process related issues that could hinder effective access to the study respondents. Expectation challenges concerned how to deal with the immediate and strategic needs of the study communities. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that culturally sensitive approaches to data collection can reduce ethical challenges and, through innovative approaches, practical challenges faced during data collection can be minimized.