Maintaining Professionalism, Appropriate Distance, and Consistency in Relationships with Participants in Longitudinal Research: Guidelines for Investigators and Research Staff

Abstract

When conducting longitudinalstudies, particularly those that measure personal and sensitive issues anddepend upon establishing a relationship with study participants that isrespectful, trustworthy, and consistent to ensure study participants arecomfortable, clear about the purpose of the research, and likely to remainengaged over time, natural relationships are formed between those collectingdata and study participants. A paramount concern for longitudinal research isthat these relationships do not exert differential effects on the datacollected, participants’ retention in the study, or the well-being of eitherthe study participants or research staff. We propose specific strategies tominimize differential effects of these relationships on the study’s scientificand ethical integrity. The guidelines are ones we have developed and refinedover the past 3 decades in multiple large-scale longitudinal studies, primarilywith low-income and minority families whose children have higher than averagelevels of biological and social risk factors. These guidelines focus onspecifying explicit boundaries for the relationships and consequences ofdeviating from these and the challenging issue of how to be warm and supportivewithout crossing boundaries of professionalism, altering the data collectionprocess, or treating study participants differently and perhaps confusing themabout the established research contract.