Telephone Survey Respondents' Reactions to Questions Regarding Interpersonal Violence

Concerns have been raised regarding the appropriateness of asking about violence victimization in telephone interviews and whether asking such questions increases respondents' distress or risk for harm. However, no large-scale studies have evaluated the impact of asking such questions during a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Violence and victims 2006-08, Vol.21 (4), p.445-459
Main Authors: Black, Michele C., Kresnow, Marcie-Jo, Simon, Thomas R., Arias, Ileana, Shelley, Gene
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Attitude
Behavioral Sciences
Child
Child Abuse - ethics
Child Abuse - psychology
Child Abuse - statistics & numerical data
Counseling
Data Collection - ethics
Data Collection - methods
Domestic violence
Ethics
Ethics, Research
Family Violence
Female
Humans
Interviews as Topic
Male
Marriage and Family Counselling
Methodology (Data Collection)
Pilot Projects
Policy, Social Justice, and Human Rights
Psychology
Research Ethics
Research Subjects
Research Subjects - psychology
Risk
Self Disclosure
Sex crimes
Social and Personality Psychology
Social Work
Spouse Abuse - ethics
Spouse Abuse - psychology
Spouse Abuse - statistics & numerical data
Telephone Surveys
United States
Victimization
Victims of crime
Violence - ethics
Violence - psychology
Violence - statistics & numerical data
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Concerns have been raised regarding the appropriateness of asking about violence victimization in telephone interviews and whether asking such questions increases respondents' distress or risk for harm. However, no large-scale studies have evaluated the impact of asking such questions during a telephone interview. This study explored respondents' reactions to questions regarding violence in two large recently completed telephone surveys. After respondents were asked about violence, they were asked if they thought surveys should ask such questions and whether they felt upset or afraid because of the questions. In both surveys, the majority of respondents (regardless of their victimization history) were willing to answer questions about violence and were not upset or afraid because of the questions. More than 92% of respondents thought such questions should be asked. These results challenge commonly held beliefs and assumptions and provide some assurance to those concerned with the ethical collection of data on violent victimization.
ISSN:0886-6708
1945-7073
DOI:10.1891/0886-6708.21.4.445