mears gives it one last go - interview tips anyone?

[mears]

Met with tutor today and am having one last ditch attemt at getting masters dissertation done.

Planning to send women a questionnaire who have had a waterbirth then select about 5 to conduct an interview with. Want to know how they came about having a wtarebirth - was it preplanned or was pool suggested as pain relief when they came to labour ward.

Anyone got any tips about interviewing and how to get meaningful data?

Where are you all?

anyone about yet?

what are you aiming to find out and why?

what's your disseratation about? What are you studying for?

do you want experiencs and poersonal anecdotes or measurable data of some kind to use in graphs or something

Hello

After some discussion today, tutor suggested a questionnaire for women who have had a waterbirth in the previous 6 months.

I believe that there are a number of women who birth in the pool who had not planned it. I want to find out how they made their decision to deliver in the pool. Had they read about it beforehand. Had their community midwife discussed it. Was it just suggested to them to use the pool when they arrived in labour and they then went on to have their baby in the water.

From that information I should then get consent to interview 5 women to gain more indepth knowledge of their experience and decision making.

The interviewing part freaks me out because I know i talk too much and I may well veer off course. I also need to know how I will get information that I need. Need to identify themes and patterns etc.

I just do not have the confidence to get the thing done. Have lost the thread I did before about completing my masters

Couldn't you have some sort of further questionnaire written down? You could tick the questions off as you asked them and then if you veered off-topic you could find your place again. Once you've read the first questionnaire results you'll have some idea what you what to ask each one, I guess?

you need a set list of questions to give to person to fill in before you interview them(and have been returned to you for you to know a little about them)
For hard data and to produce charts/graphs etc you need a sliding scale to represent feelings
eg on a scale of 1 - 10, 1 being the lowest etc..

and then a small list of questions to get personal quotes

is that any help?

You could get copies of their notes too

Shouldn't they say WHO proposed the idea etc?

A semi structured interview? Built around a number of questions, but talking around them to potentially gain extra useful data. Tape them. Make a transcript. Identify themes from there.

Bump for Mears.
(Am braindead meself fropm spending last few days slaving over an essay.)

Hi Mears,I did a qualitative study for my degree in a health field.I had eight subjects.I did a semi structured interview as the previous poster suggested and they also allowed me to tape their interview on a dictaphone.(Twas a while ago)then I drew "themes" from this data.It was yonks ago though so I am very rusty re such things.Good luck!!!

Open questions!

Nothing that is a simple yes/no answer.

Thanks.

I am off to try and write my proposal (again)

I hate research - I really do. I don't mind other peoples but I must do this to complete the masters I started years ago. I then ask myself why am I bothering? What difference is it going to make in the longrun?

It will make the difference to you!! Go get 'em girl!

And no more of this... but what/why crap!

It will make a difference to all future mothers Mears and it will mean that your name takes its place in the formal role call of Those who have Made our Society a Better Place.

Also nowt as good as knowing you got a bit of research out there.

Go for it.

I spend my time running clinical trials and designing audits.

When you are designing a questionnaire, work backwards from the data you want to collect and what you intend to do with it. So think about how you are going to write up your results and what you are hoping to be able to demonstrate in order to inform your reader. You probably have some anecdotal evidence and ideas of your own that inform you as to what you are likely to find. If you are collecting hard data for analysis, you have to use closed questions with lots of alternative responses. If you just want to discover a trend, or a collection of opinions, without really producing hard statistics, then you can use open questions and ask correspondants to write a short piece expressing their thoughts.

If you are intending to contact patients, use their medical records, and publish anything, you must get written informed consent, Ethics approval and R&D approval. Your R&D department will be able to help you with all of that.

I used to be a midwife, so if there is anything else I can help with, I will be happy to try.

I am doing Audit Design as part of my Masters.

My email is 3tadpoles at googlemail dot com

Don't get discouraged, it sounds a lovely project and very do-able.

Sorry, should have said "OR publish anything"

How's it going Mears?

Thanks for the e-mail 3littlefrogs.

My tutor is being really helpful and is really tring toget me on the road.

We discussed interview methods yesterday and am considering doing telephone interviews instead of postal questionnaire.

Consent and all the rest would be sought as it will go through ethics committee.

Do you think women would be more inclined to speak than fill in a questionnaire?

You are very welcome Mears.

Telephone interviews can work quite well - better than the interviewee filling in the questionnaire, but you have to be careful not to "lead" the interviewee.

I would strongly suggest doing a pilot on 3 or 4 women with your first draft of your questionnaire, and make lots of notes and suggestions. I would be willing to bet you will want to make changes and improvements based on your experience. You could send one as a postal Q., do another as a face to face, and another as a telephone interview.

That will help you to decide whether your study design and your questionnaire does what you expect and want it to do. If you dicover glaring problems with the pilot study, you can amend it and not waste time going back to your subjects with extra questions or clarifications.

TBH I wouldn't think a total sample of 5 women would give you meaningful data, but you could present it as a pilot for a bigger study.

Of course it depends how many subjects you could potentially include in your study.

HTH

In answer to your question, I think women like to speak about their birth experiences, but a questionnaire with closed questions would be needed as well, to make sure you got the information/answers to specifics - especially if your study requires comparisons between subjects. So probably doing both is the best option.

Have e-mailed you both!

Have had some great advice - will get started tomorrow