Raising awareness of emotional labour in dementia research

Dr Catherine Quinn and Dr Ana Barbosa from the Centre of Applied Dementia Research alongside Dr Gill Toms (Bangor University) and Dr Alexandra Hillman (University of Exeter) have been exploring the issue of emotional labour within dementia research. This work has been published online in Qualitative Health Research.

Emotional labour isn’t something that often gets discussed in research. The concept of emotional labour refers to the regulation and management of emotions. It has been applied to workplace situations where there is direct interaction with individuals such as customers. Emotional labour relates to a mismatch between emotions that are internally felt and the emotions that are externally displayed. Perhaps as an employee you are dealing with an angry customer. Internally you may be feeling annoyed with this individual but externally you remain calm and smiling as that is how your employer expects you to respond.

The concept of emotional labour can be applied to research as it often involves some level of interaction with participants, perhaps through interviews or the completion of questionnaires. But emotional labour often isn’t talked about. When we are considering the ethical impacts of research, we tend to focus on the participant rather than any impact on the researcher. Yet, not recognising the role of emotional labour within research risks researchers entering into the research field unprepared for the impact. If not managed properly emotional labour can have a negative impact on an individual’s well-being.

We applied the concept of emotional labour to an area that we all work within, dementia research. We identified that there are specific areas within our field that can result in emotional labour. This includes issues around the consent process and assessing capacity to consent. Related to this are the challenges that can be associated with fluctuating awareness in dementia. Interpersonally there can also be emotional labour involved in rapport building and managing risks related to the blurring of role boundaries. Similar issues can arise for researchers working in other areas of health research.

In our paper we provide peer-critiqued recommendations for dealing with emotional labour.  Managing emotional labour involves planning for it in the different stages of the research process  when designing a project. This involves thinking through how you can manage any emotional labour that you anticipate might arise. Management strategies will vary across individuals, but for some might involve decompressing through writing reflective notes. Most importantly it’s vital to talk to others about the emotional labour involved in research, to properly debrief afterwards and to raise awareness and recognition of the issue.

To access the full article see: Quinn, C., Hillman, A., Barbosa, A., & Toms, G. (2024). Emotional Labor in Dementia Research. Qualitative Health Research.