in the case of violence against women surveys it is critical from the outset to plan how all aspects of the project will incorporate methods of meeting the ethical requirements to ensure the safety of respondents and research teams to protect the confidentiality of respondents to minimize emotional distress to provide information on sources of support and to refer respondents to sources of support in the community if needed one of the fundamental challenges for surveys on violence against women is that of obtaining accurate estimates of the prevalence of violence especially in contexts where there are strong taboos on speaking to outsiders about family relationships violence in the family or sexual relations focus group discussions and other qualitative research methods that engage local women in discussions about the feasibility of the survey and about ways to surmount these taboos and to adapt the questionnaire and protocols to the local context will be critical to the success of the survey there are several key elements to be considered when developing questionnaires