195 International Review of Qualitative Research, Volume 1, Number 2, August 2008, pp. 195–214. © 2008 International Institute for Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign All rights reserved. Qualitative Researchers’ Conceptualizations of the Risks Inherent in Qualitative Interviews1 Janice M. Morse, Linda Niehaus, Stanley Varnhagen, Wendy Austin, and Michele McIntosh Abstract In this article, we report on a web-based survey of 517 qualita- tive researchers’ perceptions of the risks inherent in qualitative unstructured interviews. Although emotions manifest during these qualitative interviews may be viewed as “natural” in the context of the types of losses experienced by the interviewees, the emotional responses cannot be identifed in an In- stitutional Review Board (IRB) review of the proposal. Te mitigation of this emotional response is, however, the responsibility of the researcher, and eth- ics education and short courses must include such instruction. Psychological harm to the researcher, although rare, is a possibility for which researchers must be prepared. Te authors conclude by suggesting six principles of ethical conduct for qualitative researchers. Tese principles should be useful to IRBs and included in ethics and qualitative methods courses. Presently qualitative research proposals are evaluated and approved by Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) (or in Canada, REBs [Research Ethics Boards]) using criteria that were developed to guide biomedical research from the principles arising from the Belmont Report (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Bio- medical and Behavioral Research, 1978). Te intent of these guidelines has been the “protection of human subjects from harm” and hence to minimize risk in research. As these guidelines were intended for experimental biomedical research, they have been argued as inappropriate for the review of human science research (Gunsalus, Brunner, Burbles, et. al., 2007). Furthermore, although no hard data exist, the structure and mode of functioning of IRBs/REBs results in requirements for the conduct of qualita- tive research that are often inappropriate, and remarkable for their lack of consisten- cy between applications, between committees, and between institutions (Gunsalus, Brunner, Burbles, et. al., 2007). Te purpose of this article is to report on an internet survey of qualitative re- searchers that explored their experiences regarding their perceptions of, and the na- ture of, risk in qualitative research using unstructured interviews.