title: Accessing vulnerable research populations: an experience with gatekeepers of ethical approval.
abstract: Accessing vulnerable populations for research purposes can be difficult, as participants must be sheltered from research that might be insensitive, intrusive, and potentially distressing. People diagnosed with a life-limiting condition may be vulnerable, and involving such people in research samples may be fraught with difficulties. Nevertheless, it is important that these vulnerable populations participate in health and social-care research so that their requirements and opinions can be learnt. This paper describes an experience of proceeding through an ethical approval process for a proposed qualitative research study into the preferred place of death of a group of potentially vulnerable hospice patients. Research of this nature had never been undertaken at the hospice before, and the researchers expected to encounter a degree and variety of gatekeeping when seeking access to this sensitive population.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Life Course Studies, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.forename: Sue
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Read
mesh_terms: D004989:Ethics; D015399:Nursing Research; D035862:Vulnerable Populations