Visual Elicitation: Methods for Enhancing the Quality and Depth of Interview Data in Applied Qualitative Health Research

Percepções dos pais sobre uma intervenção de esportes modificados para crianças com paralisia cerebral

O Sports Stars Brasil tem como objetivo promover a participação em atividades de lazer. O Sports Stars foi uma intervenção agradável, de curto prazo, com dosagem pequena, focada na participação. Os pais dos participantes do Sports Stars Brasil perceberam benefícios em todas as "minhas palavras favoritas". Esta intervenção de esportes modificados foi capaz de integrar todas as "minhas palavras favoritas".

Parents' perceptions of a modified sports intervention for children with cerebral palsy

AIM

To explore the perceptions of parents of children with cerebral palsy (CP) participating in a modified sports intervention, Sports Stars Brazil.

METHOD

Parents of children with CP (n = 15, 6-12 years old, nine males, six females), classified in Gross Motor Function Classification System levels I and II, who participated in the Sports Stars Brazil intervention, were recruited for this descriptive qualitative study. Children received the 8-week (1 hour per week) modified sports intervention. After the intervention, parents participated in a focus group. The F-word (fitness, family, fun, functioning, friends, and future) interpretation of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health was used to guide the discussion. Participants were invited to report their experience of participating in the intervention using the F-words for a childhood disability model. Transcripts were coded using content analysis.

RESULTS

Parents reported positive experiences of the Sports Stars Brazil intervention, including a decrease in sedentarism (fitness), improvement of motor skills (functioning), greater connection between child and family (family), better socialization (friends), increased participation in pleasurable activities (fun), and awareness of the importance of physical activity (future). All positive experiences were interconnected.

INTERPRETATION

This study presents the ability of the Sports Stars Brazil intervention to integrate all aspects of functioning and supports its role as an engaging and promising intervention option for ambulant children with CP.

WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS

The parents of children participating in Sports Stars Brazil perceived benefits across all F-words. This modified sports intervention integrated all F-words into one concept.

What supports and services post COVID-19 do children with disabilities and their parents need and want, now and into the future?

Introduction

Children and youth with disabilities and special healthcare needs, and their families, have been uniquely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the voices of children themselves are still not well represented in the existing literature.

Methods

This qualitative descriptive study used a combination of visual methods and interviews to learn about the experiences of Canadian children with disabilities (n=18) and their parents (n=14) during the COVID pandemic and into the post-pandemic period. Data collection was carried out between January and July 2023. The aim was to identify the supports and services children and families need at present and moving forward.

Results

Families' pandemic experiences were complex and nuanced. For many, the pandemic complicated and disrupted everyday activities and supports. These disruptions were largely buffered by parents. However, some families also identified unexpected benefits. Key themes pertaining to present and future needs included the need for services that are flexible; consistent; conducive to relationship-building; comprehensive; coordinated across sectors; and designed to support the needs of the whole family.

Discussion

Implications for policy and practice are outlined.

New genomic techniques, old divides: Stakeholder attitudes towards new biotechnology regulation in the EU and UK

The European Union and United Kingdom are in the process of establishing new regulation regarding the use of new genomic techniques in crop and animal breeding. As part of this process, consultations have been launched to understand the views of stakeholders towards the use of new genomic techniques in plant and animal breeding. The responsible research and innovation framework emphasises the importance of dialogue between technology developers and stakeholders, including the public, but what are the opinions of stakeholders towards the regulation of NGTs in Europe and do they view these consultations as opportunities to engage with technology governance? We conducted semi-structured interviews with experts from a range of agri-food stakeholder groups in the European Union and United Kingdom to understand current attitudes towards new biotechnology regulation, how they viewed the process of consultation in both places and what influence they felt they had in shaping regulations. We found that the discussion is similar in both EU and UK, with predictable and fixed opinions determined by attitudes towards the perceived risks associated with direct mutagenesis. Both UK and EU consultations were considered to have the same weaknesses and stakeholders discussed a desire for more dialogic forms of engagement. We highlight several options for new forms of involvement in biotechnology regulation by exploring relevant responsible research and innovation literature.

The Development and Use of a New Visual Tool (REVISIT) to Support Participant Recall: Web-Based Interview Study Among Older Adults

BACKGROUND

Qualitative health services research often relies on semistructured or in-depth interviews to develop a deeper understanding of patient experiences, motivations, and perspectives. The quality of data gathered is contingent upon a patient's recall capacity; yet, studies have shown that recall of medical information is low. Threats to generating rich and detailed interview data may be more prevalent when interviewing older adults.

OBJECTIVE

We developed and studied the feasibility of using a tool, Remembering Healthcare Encounters Visually and Interactively (REVISIT), which has been created to aid the recall of a specific telemedicine encounter to provide health services research teams with a visual tool, to improve qualitative interviews with older adults.

METHODS

The REVISIT visual appointment summary was developed to facilitate web-based interviews with our participants as part of an evaluation of a geriatric telemedicine program. Our primary aims were to aid participant recall, maintain focus on the index visit, and establish a shared understanding of the visit between participants and interviewers. The authors' experiences and observations developing REVISIT and using it during videoconference interviews (N=16) were systematically documented and synthesized. We discuss these experiences with REVISIT and suggest considerations for broader implementation and future research to expand upon this preliminary work.

RESULTS

REVISIT enhanced the interview process by providing a focus and catalyst for discussion and supporting rapport-building with participants. REVISIT appeared to support older patients' and caregivers' recollection of a clinical visit, helping them to share additional details about their experience. REVISIT was difficult to read for some participants, however, and could not be used for phone interviews.

CONCLUSIONS

REVISIT is a promising tool to enhance the quality of data collected during interviews with older, rural adults and caregivers about a health care encounter. This novel tool may aid recall of health care experiences for those groups for whom it may be more challenging to collect accurate, rich qualitative data (eg, those with cognitive impairment or complex medical care), allowing health services research to include more diverse patient experiences.

A framework for selecting data generation strategies in qualitative health research studies

BACKGROUND

Qualitative health research has the potential to answer important applied health research questions to inform nutrition and dietetics practice, education and policy. Qualitative health research is a distinct subdiscipline of qualitative inquiry that purposefully draws upon the context of healthcare and emphasises health and wellness.

METHODS

Qualitative health research is defined by two parameters: (1) the focus of the study and (2) the methods used. When considering the methods to be used, decisions are required about the type of data to be generated (e.g., transcripts, images and notes) and the process involved in data generation (e.g., interviews, elicitation strategies and observations) to answer the research question(s). Drawing upon examples from nutrition and dietetics literature, this paper provides a framework to support decision-making for nutrition and dietetics researchers and clinician researchers designing conducting qualitative health research.

RESULTS

The guiding questions of the framework include: What types of data will be generated? Who is involved in data generation? Where will data generation occur? When will data generation occur? How will data be recorded and managed? and How will participants' and researchers' emotional safety be promoted?

CONCLUSION

Questions about the types of data, those involved, where and when, as well as how safety can be maintained in data generation, not only support a more robust design and description of data generation methods but also keep the person at the centre of the research.

How transdisciplinary research teams learn to do knowledge translation (KT), and how KT in turn impacts transdisciplinary research: a realist evaluation and longitudinal case study

BACKGROUND

Transdisciplinary research and knowledge translation are increasingly regarded as key concepts underpinning applied research across the health and social sciences, due to their presumed potential in addressing complex, "wicked" problems and improving the use of research in practice and policy, respectively. Despite sharing an impact mandate, the relationship between transdisciplinary research collaboration and knowledge translation remains unclear. In response, we examined the relationship between transdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge translation to generate these understandings with a view towards maximizing the impact of collaborative efforts.

METHODS

We undertook a realist evaluation and longitudinal case study of a 5-year National Health and Medical Research Council-funded Centre of Research Excellence in Transdisciplinary Frailty Research. Data were collected between February 2017 and March 2020 over three rounds of theory development, refinement and testing using interviews, observation, document review and visual elicitation as data sources. The Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Adelaide approved this study.

RESULTS

Iterative analysis of narrative interviews and visual data led to the development of three overarching programme theories explicating the reciprocal relationship between KT understandings and transdisciplinary team process. These programme theories revolve around the concept of a network, which we define in alignment with extant theoretical literature on network mechanisms and complex networks as graphically representable networks of agents/people (nodes) joined by social relationships (links). Our findings demonstrate that under the right contextual conditions, transdisciplinary team members respond through an improved ability to (1) navigate the network, (2) negotiate the network and (3) mobilize the network.

CONCLUSIONS

This research demonstrates the reciprocity and mutually supportive relationship between transdisciplinary research and knowledge translation. Our findings suggest that embedding a collaborative knowledge translation framework and providing resources such as facilitation and distributed leadership within a transdisciplinary team can improve collaboration and support transdisciplinary research objectives.

Qualitative health research in the fields of developmental medicine and child neurology

This invited review introduces the principles of qualitative health research (QHR) to the fields of developmental medicine and child neurology to facilitate the conduct of applied qualitative research. It provides practical guidance on how to write a study purpose statement aligned with the foci of QHR and then articulate an overarching research question using the Emphasis-Purposeful sample-Phenomenon of interest-Context framework. Guidance for health researchers on how to select a study design that aligns with the practice, education, or policy goals of applied QHR is provided. This is followed by strategies to guide decision-making with respect to purposeful sampling, selecting data collection methods, and identifying the most appropriate analytic approach to code and synthesize the data. Findings from QHR studies can be used conceptually or instrumentally to provide new insights or inform decisions within the discipline of developmental medicine and child neurology. While qualitive findings are increasingly valued in the field, designing studies that demonstrate methodological congruence is one strategy to improve the overall quality and trustworthiness of discipline specific QHR.