The social research in the mental health field

I present this article in the context of writing my PhD thesis called "The judicialization of mental health: the experiences of people with a psychiatric diagnosis and with restriction of juridical capacity in Mar del Plata." The thesis employs a descriptive exploratory approach based on a qualitative strategy as the main source, in which I considered the grounded theory as a methodological guide. The design of the research required to make semistructured interviews to both male and female people with some kind of restriction of juridical capacity and with ambulatory mental health treatment. The objective of this article is to analyze the methodological and ethical issues experienced through the research. I divide the decision-making process into five different moments: the definition of the problem to research, the sample, the collection (strategies for data collection), the analysis (tools to organize and give meaning to the information collected), and finally the decisions relating to ethics in social research.