Internet-mediated research in the wake of Covid-19: Dealing with disclosure of serious risk of harm

Among the many debates sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic is how best to ensure appropriate bio-ethical guidance is in place to inform medical and public health interventions and the research which underpins and guides them. The research community has been galvanised by expedited funding, approval and publication processes, and innovations such as crowd-sourced approaches to international collaboration¹ and living evidence reviews². Alongside these new ventures, many existing and newly-designed studies are moving to internet-mediated research (IMR) – defined by the British Psychological Society as ‘any research involving the remote acquisition of data from or about human participants using the internet and its associated technologies’.

Existing guidance on IMR from bodies such as the British Sociological Association (BSA)³, the British Psychological Society (BPS)⁴, the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)⁵ and the British Society of Criminology (BSC)⁶ have been complemented by newer and more broad-reaching guidance such as the crowd-sourced ‘Doing Fieldwork in a Pandemic’⁷. However, a review of these documents suggests a lack of existing guidance on handling participant disclosure of serious risk of harm to self or others (DSRHSO) during IMR, although AoIR and BSC do acknowledge that researchers may have legal or professional obligations to report such disclosures⁵. The business of IMR is still often ‘uncharted territory’³ and the timely production of such guidance is vital as the pandemic not only necessitates online methods, but also creates and exacerbates vulnerabilities.

For studies involving face-to-face data collection, it is often stipulated that if a participant discloses serious risk of harm to themselves or others, the confidentiality usually afforded in the research environment should be broken in order to address those safety concerns. This action is most commonly specified for studies that will predictably touch on very sensitive topics and/or studies involving populations who have experienced significant adversity or trauma. This caveat is written into the participant information sheet along with a brief account of how the researcher will respond to such a disclosure, e.g. who they will notify and when, and who else might be involved in escalating the issue. Though always difficult, the hope is that in the context of a face-to-face interview conducted in an organisational setting any revelation could be handled sensitively.

In the case of IMR, such participant disclosures may occur in very different contexts. Participation may have been anonymous, either as part of a deliberate research strategy to improve response validity, or because participants have chosen to provide a pseudonym. Even when a bona-fide name is provided, further action may be difficult in the absence of valid contact details and other identifiers such as date of birth. This can mean that tracing participants—in order to invoke safeguarding procedures such as informing police, social services or other agencies—may be much more difficult, particularly as online studies may more easily draw participants from across the world⁴. Certainly the ‘act’ of participation may inadvertently cause harm, with certain topics awakening distress and other strong emotions, and/or bringing to the fore issues concerning risk of harm to self or others. In particular, disclosures may occur more commonly when gathering qualitative data, particularly interviews, and to a lesser degree, other forms of open-ended responses such as focus groups, diaries or open-ended questionnaire items.

Of particular relevance at the moment is the emotional and psychological cost of the Covid-19 pandemic. Reports of domestic abuse and mental illness have spiralled^8,9, such that we might anticipate more frequent DSRHSO even when researching seemingly innocuous topics. Furthermore, victims of abuse or those suffering severe mental illness may take the opportunity afforded by research participation to disclose serious risk of harm in order to access help, but may still need guidance or prompts to provide contact details.

The lack of existing guidance on this issue is perhaps indicative of the small proportion of studies to which it was previously thought to be relevant; before the Covid-19 pandemic, studies on sensitive topics were recommended for face-to-face data collection precisely because researchers have low control over risks in online settings⁴. Conducting such studies in online settings presents significant procedural difficulties which may be difficult to surmount in order that ethical and methodological concerns can be adequately balanced. Specifically, the prioritisation of participant safety (by requiring participant identifiers and contact details so that confidentiality can be broken if needed) may reduce the validity of the data they provide, and prevent the inclusion of disenfranchised voices—such that the most vulnerable in society may in fact elect not to participate at all.

Nonetheless, the current pandemic presents an opportunity to establish some guidance on handling DSRHSO in the context of IMR—both on sensitive topics, and on topics previously considered less sensitive but conducted with people more likely to be experiencing extreme adversity due to the pandemic. This would be to the benefit of not only participants’ wellbeing but also researchers, who might otherwise experience the distress of being unable to address serious safety concerns following a disclosure. Although the moral ‘context specificity’⁵ is unique to each study, warranting a situational ethics approach³, guidance on this specific issue is warranted, particularly as it intersects with the core concerns of IMR—i.e. confidentiality and informed consent³. Going forward into the post-pandemic era, such guidance may also facilitate safe online participation by those who are unable to participate in face-to-face data collection for reasons such as domestic abuse, informal care and work responsibilities or fear of stigmatisation.

The nature of guidance itself, how it is created and adopted and by whom, has itself become the subject of scrutiny during the pandemic. The production of guidance on this issue is therefore planned as an open and transparent process, an inter-disciplinary endeavour, drawing on those with lived experience of participating in research as well as those expert in conducting IMR and in researching disenfranchised populations, stigmatised conditions and sensitive topics.

Data availability

No data are associated with this article.