Barriers, Challenges and Considerations in Respondent-Driven Sampling with Women Victims of Intimate Partner Violence

Introduction: Gender violence by a partner is a reality that has been addressed in recent decades. Accessing to this population can be a challenging issue for the researcher, due to there are only sample frames of women who have reported violence, losing sight of those who have been victims but due to various personal, social, cultural circumstances, among others, do not have done the police report. In this way, gender violence by a partner is an underestimated phenomenon. The objective: of this article was to qualitatively describe the barriers, challenges and considerations in recruiting Respondent-Driven Sampling with women who are victims of intimate partner violence, mostly unreported. Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a statistical alternative to snowball sampling, which allows access to visible and, especially hidden, populations. Results: A total of 72 women were recruited for the study despite having initially set the goal of 95 women. The number of initial seeds and the deadline for applying instruments should had been extended in order to have greater participation. The challenges and barriers throughout sample collection and the resolution strategies used by the research team are shown. Conclusion: The obstacles must be kept in mind when working with women who have experienced intimate partner violence by reason of they are a hidden population and difficult to access due to their characteristics. Women from all socioeconomic strata and educational levels were found Valle de Aburrá, Antioquia.