Editing Snowball sampling (section)

== Ethical issues==
{{Research paper|section|date=April 2017}}
Ethical concerns may prevent the research staff from directly contacting many potential respondents. Therefore, program directors or personnel who knew of possible respondents can make initial contacts and then ask those who were willing to cooperate to personally contact the project. In each instance, the newly recruited research participant must be trained to understand and accept the eligibility criteria of the research. For example, in a study on treatment for substance-use disorder which used snowball sampling, it was difficult for many to understand the eligibility criteria because some criteria violated common-sense understandings concerning treatment and non-treatment. For example, many people define themselves as untreated in spite of possible long stays in civil commitment programs because their commitments to these institutions were involuntary and/or because they had become re-addicted upon release and then recovered at a later time.<ref>Biernacki, Waldorf / SNOWBALL SAMPLING</ref> Therefore, the quality of informed consent was in doubt.

In a qualitative research, apprehension around feelings of compulsion are reviewed for potential ethical dilemmas and recommendations for research process are made.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Brace-Govan | first1 = Jan | year = 2004 | title = Issues in snowball sampling: The lawyer, the model and ethics | journal = Qualitative Research Journal | volume = 4 | issue = 1| page = 52 }}</ref>