in: various departments of the Local Government Area such as primary healthcare, environment; different hospitals including a tertiary hospital owned by the federal government, two faith-based hospitals patronised by many people from the study site; and private hospitals and pharmacies. All these institutions demanded some form of review or approval process before I could interview their staff. For the tertiary hospital some of the challenges of getting ethical review as highlighted for ABUTH-REC (See Appendix III: Weighting of relevant ethics committees in Nigeria) made it unrealistic to go through that process. The options were to exclude participants from that hospital from the research, which will leave a significant gap in the data or to find alternative ways of including them that are ethical and does not involve going through the ABUTH-REC. For the LGA Departments, proper review systems do not exist. Personal networks were needed to connect with the individuals concerned as well as when making connections with most of the private hospitals and pharmacies. For the latter, their biggest concern is time away from work for staff participating in interviews. In the two faith-based hospitals, one has a management system that values and understands the need for research and the process was formal but efficient, while the second relied more on personal contacts with the head of the hospital. Among the organisations presenting the most challenges, the most ethically challenging was dealing with the staff from the tertiary hospitals. Here again, personal relationship with individuals working in the hospital played an important role. The participating institution recommended that the most efficient route for ethics approval were either to apply to and use the acknowledgement of receipt of application and proceed with the research on that basis as is the tradition with most ongoing research at time in the institution or approach individual Heads of Departments where relevant staff that were to be interviewed are located and interview the staff based on their department’s approval. The latter option was taken, and four departments were approached out of which 3 agreed and in 2 of these the heads of the departments themselves were interviewed while in remaining one a representative of the Head of Department was interviewed. Dilemmas in accessing participants There were a number of ethical dilemmas in accessing participants. First, the minimal presence of state in the study setting brings about competition to fill in the vacuum where old power bases (such as traditional rulers) and new contenders (such as Salafi ulama) will seize the opportunity to claim or reclaim authority. The district head of the settlement served as one of
in: various departments of the Local Government Area such as primary healthcare, environment; different hospitals including a tertiary hospital owned by the federal government, two faith-based hospitals patronised by many people from the study site; and private hospitals and pharmacies. All these institutions demanded some form of review or approval process before I could interview their staff. For the tertiary hospital some of the challenges of getting ethical review as highlighted for ABUTH-REC (See Appendix III: Weighting of relevant ethics committees in Nigeria) made it unrealistic to go through that process. The options were to exclude participants from that hospital from the research, which will leave a significant gap in the data or to find alternative ways of including them that are ethical and does not involve going through the ABUTH-REC. For the LGA Departments, proper review systems do not exist. Personal networks were needed to connect with the individuals concerned as well as when making connections with most of the private hospitals and pharmacies. For the latter, their biggest concern is time away from work for staff participating in interviews. In the two faith-based hospitals, one has a management system that values and understands the need for research and the process was formal but efficient, while the second relied more on personal contacts with the head of the hospital. Among the organisations presenting the most challenges, the most ethically challenging was dealing with the staff from the tertiary hospitals. Here again, personal relationship with individuals working in the hospital played an important role. The participating institution recommended that the most efficient route for ethics approval were either to apply to and use the acknowledgement of receipt of application and proceed with the research on that basis as is the tradition with most ongoing research at time in the institution or approach individual Heads of Departments where relevant staff that were to be interviewed are located and interview the staff based on their department’s approval. The latter option was taken, and four departments were approached out of which 3 agreed and in 2 of these the heads of the departments themselves were interviewed while in remaining one a representative of the Head of Department was interviewed. Dilemmas in accessing participants There were a number of ethical dilemmas in accessing participants. First, the minimal presence of state in the study setting brings about competition to fill in the vacuum where old power bases (such as traditional rulers) and new contenders (such as Salafi ulama) will seize the opportunity to claim or reclaim authority. The district head of the settlement served as one of
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