Trust me, I'm a researcher

The Project

Consider this common scenario: You are a researcher recruiting participants into your research project. The participant, whom you have only just met, has indicated that they are interested in participating; you go through the research information with them, carefully explaining the risks and benefits of the research. Before you can proceed, the participant stops you and says, ‘it’s OK, you don’t have to go on, I trust you’. This deceptively simple phrase, ‘I trust you’, is ethically laden. What does it mean, for the participant and the researcher, and the research relationship?

The importance of trust in research is widely accepted, but is largely unexplored and taken for granted. We need to ensure that we understand and can clearly define trust and its role in research. Without this it is difficult to promote and strengthen trustworthiness in research, and conversely, to regain trust when it is lost. The specific aim of this qualitative project is to provide an analysis of trust and trustworthiness in human research and, in particular, the meaning and role of trust between researchers and research participants. Using qualitative methodology, the project will investigate:

• How researchers understand their relationship with participants and the role of building and fulfilling trust; and,
• How participants decide to be involved in research, and the role that trust in researchers plays in this decision and their subsequent participation in research.

This study, funded by the Australian Research Council (2010-2012), is being conducted by Assoc Prof Lynn Gillam, Assoc Prof Marilys Guillemin, Prof Doreen Rosenthal, and Paul Stewart from the School of Population Health at the University of Melbourne, assisted by research officer Hannah Walker.