Settings and ethics

The intervention was implemented in two primary health care clinics in the West Bank of oPt. Clinic 1 was based in Area C (under full Israeli civil and security control) and Clinic 2 in Area B (under Palestinian civil control, but joint Palestinian-Israeli security control). Selection was based on clinics having a reasonable infrastructure and good potential for integrating the intervention, details of which are reported elsewhere [5]. Ethical approval was obtained from An-Najah National University, University of Bristol (61603) and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (15341). Participants were asked to read an information sheet written in Arabic and written consent was obtained. The local research team received training in qualitative interviewing techniques for research on violence against women, and were encouraged to reflect on how their values and social position could impact rapport building with research participants and data quality. Four of the six researchers were medical doctors and two were Assistant Professors. Three of the researchers were female. In line with international guidance on researching domestic violence, women survivors of domestic violence were interviewed by female researchers. Most violence against women is perpetrated by men and it is recognised that women participants feel more comfortable discussing these experiences with female researchers [34]. However, given the focus of the provider interviews on implementation of HERA, it was not deemed essential to gender match, although this sometimes occurred by chance. Recent critical debates [35] highlight the complexities of building rapport in qualitative research and question the utility of matching on gender, age, ethnicity and other factors to minimise power hierarchies and enhance data quality. It is argued that matching on one characteristic does not always have the desired effect, as it may close off certain lines of questioning due to assumptions about shared world views between the participant and researcher. Furthermore, intersectionality recognises that individual identities are formed through the meeting of different social positions which can bring privilege in some areas of life, but disadvantage in others.