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Article Analysis
This paper presents a critical analysis of the article Experiences of homophobia among gay and bisexual men: results from a cross-sectional study in seven countries by Chard, Finneran, Sullivan, and Stephenson (2015). This analysis aims to demonstrate critical thinking and analysis skills by exploring and reviews on the participants, procedures of the article. The analysis concludes that while an electronic survey may be susceptible to bias, it proves to be a helpful tool to reach vulnerable populations.
In the methodology section, the authors mentioned that the respondents have assured anonymity and informed consent before the beginning of the survey (Chard et al, 2015). Further, participants were informed that the survey was voluntary and would take approximately 30 minutes. Hence, it is clear that the survey only interviewed participants who voluntarily agreed to participate and were assured participant protection by guaranteeing anonymity.
Since the study involved a multinational survey, the study adopted an online survey via Facebook to recruit participants. The survey targeted men who resided in the targeted nations and used Banner ads marketing a men’s health survey to reach them. Respective, the researchers report selective bias as some participants were marked ineligible to complete in the survey. This impacted their principle of honesty, whereby despite being on a volunteering-basis, not every participant was eligible.
The fact that participants relied on electronic informed consent, I would consider them “vulnerable”. According to Pandotra (2017), electronic informed consent can be bias, as it benefits the researcher more than the participants. Electronic informed consent possesses potential challenges related to confidentiality and consent discussion. Like in this article, there is no mention of participants being fully engaged with the study information as they lacked in-person discussion.
In this research study, there was little that researchers could have done to minimize psychological distress or discomfort. Since the survey dealt with a highly sensitive topic on homosexuality, there was likelihood that participants faced psychological distress within the survey. This explains the large number that did not complete the survey. Regardless, a notable strategy applied to narrow down the discomfort was by limiting advertisements to only men whose profiles indicated an interest in men. Also, the authors did not discuss steps taken to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the study participants which may have contributed to the low response rate that impacted the results