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Conducting Epidemiological Research In South Africa: Challenges In The Data Collection Process, Yegan Pillay, Alan J. Flisher

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

This article addresses the challenges faced by research supervisors and research assistants while collecting data to explore the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among children and adolescents in South Africa. The article focuses on budgetary constraints, interviewee expectations, moral issues, limited confidentiality, fatigue factors and racial issues that threatened the completion of the project. These challenges are examined from the emic-etic theoretical paradigm and the interactions between the research supervisors, the research assistants and the research participants are analyzed. The authors propose recommendations that can serve to prepare researchers who embark on conducting research in similar socio-cultural environments.