Pesquisa qualitativa na pandemia da COVID-19: Uma experiência com homens e o tema da violência doméstica

Abstract

Introduction. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the health area, different sectors of society, as well as people's mental health and the development of research with different designs. Goals. This study aimed to reflect on the difficulties posed to qualitative research in times of pandemic and how to overcome them based on an experience report. Methods. This is a descriptive, qualitative, experience report type study. In the analysis of the experience, the expressive-creative technique “swirl of ideas” was used. Results. The experience was successful, especially with regard to the recruitment of target audiences for qualitative research. In the scientific practice experienced and reported, all the strengths of online interviews used in scientific research were achieved: greater geographical coverage of the participants; savings in financial resources and reduction of time in data collection, greater health security for participants and researchers and the possibility of investigating socially sensitive topics (such as domestic violence or being violent) without major constraints. In the analysis of the experience, it was found that the experience of the pandemic in the field of individuality mobilized negative feelings and the perspective that the pandemic would be a temporary situation, but without the potential to affect the proposed research. Institutional responses favored overcoming the crisis and the emergence of methodological alternatives. The resolution to the problems faced by the researchers went through a heuristic process of inventing new ways of accessing facts or phenomena of interest. Conclusions. It is expected to contribute to the reflection on the possibilities of using technology from a specific case, in addition to broadening the discussion on the importance of detailing methods, instruments and procedures for data collection in future qualitative studies developed online.