People with a primary diagnosis of a mental health condition (e.g.
depression, bipolar, schizophrenia etc.), are NOT to be interviewed.
You are required to conduct a interview with a who has a chronic illness or disability to discover the impact this has on their life. You will need to prepare for your interview.
McGrath, Palmgren & Liljedahl XXXXXXXXXXsuggest twelve steps for conducting
esearch interviews as a guide.
Based on the information obtained during the interview and in collaboration with
the interviewee, identify two (2) relevant care priorities.
For each identified care priority, outline and discuss one (1) SMART goal and one
(1) health education plan relevant for the person to meet the SMART goal
developed in collaboration with the person.
You are expected to incorporate relevant nursing related literature to support all
areas of the assignment, including the pathophysiology, the importance of the
priorities, SMART goals, health behaviour theory and education plan in the context of the interviewees chronic condition and/or disability.
The written assignment should follow the below paragraph structure.
Introduction: Introduce the interviewee with a pseudonym (and clearly state it is
a pseudonym) and identify their health condition(s) (If they have multiple
conditions, you can choose to focus on one primary condition or discuss up to
two conditions). Introduce the two (2) relevant care priorities you have identified
and the sequence of information to be presented in the assignment. (max 10%
of word count).
Para 1: Provide an overview of the person you have interviewed and thei
chronic condition and/or disability including relevant biographical data obtained.
Include information about where the interviewee sits on the Roper Logan Tierney
Model of dependence/independence in relation to activities of living i.e. how
does the condition and/or disability affect their life?
Para 2: Provide a
ief overview of the pathophysiology of the chronic condition
and/or disability. Relate the pathophysiology back to the experiences of the
interviewee.
Para 3: Outline your interviewees first priority of care. Be specific and explain
the priority in depth here and identify why it is priority for the interviewee.
Para 4: Outline the first SMART goal you have developed in collaboration with
the interviewee. Why was this chosen? How will the SMART goal address the
interviewees first priority?
Para 5: Outline the health education you as a nurse will provide the interviewee
which will help them to achieve their first SMART goal, and therefore address
their first priority. Provide a detailed education plan that incorporates a health
ehaviour theory and contains specific information about the exact education
you will provide (e.g., What exactly will you say to the interviewee?
How/where/why it will be conducted? What equipment will be required? What
legal and ethical matters will you need to consider? How will the education be
evaluated?). The content of the education plan will need to be specific, detailed,
and relevant to the person you are interviewing. It will need to contain more than
generalised statements such as “provide
ochures” or “educate them about
their medication” or “direct them to a website” or “refer them to a
physiotherapist”.
Para 6: Outline your interviewees second priority of care. Be specific and explain
the priority in depth here and identify why it is priority for the interviewee.
Para 7: Outline the second SMART goal you have developed in collaboration
with the interviewee. Why was this chosen? How will the SMART goal address
the interviewees second priority?
Para 8: Outline the health education you as a nurse will provide the interviewee
which will help them to achieve their second SMART goal, and therefore address
their second priority. Provide a detailed education plan that incorporates a health
ehaviour theory and contains specific information about the exact education
you will provide (e.g., What exactly will you say to the interviewee?
How/where/why it will be conducted? What equipment will be required? What
legal and ethical matters will you need to consider? How will the education be
evaluated?). The content of the education plan will need to be specific, detailed,
and relevant to the person you are interviewing. It will need to contain more than
generalised statements such as “provide
ochures” or “educate them about
their medication” or “direct them to a website” or “refer them to a
physiotherapist”.
Conclusion: Summarise what you have discussed in your assessment. What
are the key or important ‘take home’ points? What are the next steps? (max 10%
of word count).
Twelve tips for conducting qualitative research interviews
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Twelve tips for conducting qualitative research
interviews
Cormac McGrath, Per J. Palmgren & Matilda Liljedahl
To cite this article: Cormac McGrath, Per J. Palmgren & Matilda Liljedahl XXXXXXXXXXTwelve
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TWELVE TIPS
Twelve tips for conducting qualitative research interviews
Cormac McGratha,b , Per J. Palmgrena and Matilda Liljedahla,c
aDepartment of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; bDepartment of Education,
Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; cPrimary Health Care Unit, Institute of Medicine, The Sahlgrenska Academy, University of
Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
ABSTRACT
The qualitative research interview is an important data collection tool for a variety of methods used within the
oad spec-
trum of medical education research. However, many medical teachers and life science researchers undergo a steep learning
curve when they first encounter qualitative interviews, both in terms of new theory but also regarding new methods of
inquiry and data collection. This article introduces the concept of qualitative research interviews for novice researchers
within medical education, providing 12 tips for conducting qualitative research interviews.
Introduction
In medical education research, the qualitative research
interview is a viable and highly utilized data-collection tool
(DiCicco-Bloom and Crabtree 2006; Jamshed XXXXXXXXXXThere
are a range of interview formats, conducted with both indi-
viduals and groups, where semi-structured interviews are
ecoming increasingly prevalent in medical education
esearch. Qualitative interviews afford researchers opportu-
nities to explore, in an in-depth manner, matters that are
unique to the experiences of the interviewees, allowing
insights into how different phenomena of interest are
experienced and perceived. Considering the relationship
etween participants and researchers and the emphasis on
the exploration of human phenomena, interviews have
traditionally been a data-collection method linked with
qualitative research and the naturalistic paradigm (Côt�e
and Turgeon 2005; Halcomb and Davidson 2006).
In medical education, many researchers have a back-
ground in health care professional backgrounds, and
although subjects, such as interview techniques and his-
tory-taking are included in medical, nursing, and othe
health professional cu
icula, the acquisition of interview
skills for the purpose of collecting research data is not gen-
erally addressed in the
oad spectrum of health care pro-
fessional education. Consequently, making the transition
from working as a health care professional to conducting
medical education research involving qualitative research
interviews presents a number of challenges (Hodges and
Kuper 2012; Varpio et al XXXXXXXXXXNot only does the new dis-
cipline present challenges in the form of engaging with
new types of theoretical knowledge, often presented as
learning theories, but novices to medical education
esearch will undoubtedly encounter a range of new meth-
ods of inquiry and data collection, including the qualitative
esearch interview (Laksov et al XXXXXXXXXXFurthermore, there
are few guidelines relating to the practice of conducting
qualitative research interviews. Brinkmann and Kvale (2005)
argue that one of the challenges of conducting interviews
is that they are ca
ied out under the naïve assumption
that the researcher wants to achieve understanding
through dialog and discussion. Interviews should not be
conceived as informal chats with interviewees; instead they
are data-collection instruments which can be used to pene-
trate a number of research questions. Consequently, given
the emerging position of interviews in medical education
esearch, we identify the need to articulate 12 tips for con-
ducting qualitative research interviews.
The tips presented below bo
ow insights from our own
experiences as qualitative researchers as well as from the
extensive literature on qualitative research methods. The
tips may be more useful in different phases of the inter-
view, some tips may be relevant during the planning
phase, others while conducting interviews, while others still
are most relevant after the interview.
Tip 1
Identify when qualitative research interviews are
appropriate
Qualitative interviewing is a data-collection tool that is use-
ful in a range of methodological approaches and may there-
fore be applied to address a number of research questions.
However, qualitative research interviews are preferable when
the researcher strives to understand the interviewee’s sub-
jective perspective of a phenomenon rather than generating
generalizable understandings of large groups of people, fo
example, the qualitative interview may lend itself well to
exploring a patient’s experience of illness, or a clinician’s
conceptions of learning in the workplace. As such, a study
applying qualitative interviews holds the potential to give
voice to minorities and groups in society that may not be
heard elsewhere (Reeves et al XXXXXXXXXXMoreover, one should
consider the ethical dimensions of taking up time from
CONTACT Cormac McGrath XXXXXXXXXX Karolinska Institutet, LIME, Tomtebodav€agen 18A, Stockholm 17177, Sweden
� 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http:
creativecommons.org/licenses
y-nc-
nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, o
uilt upon in any way.
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interviewees and therefore only include as many participants
as needed in the research project and who may have
insights or experiences of the phenomenon in question.
Tip 2
Prepare yourself as an interviewe
The importance of accurate preparation on behalf of the
interviewer should not be underestimated and includes
conceptual and practical preparations (Brinkmann and
Kvale 2005; Brinkmann XXXXXXXXXXSuccessful interviews start
with careful planning that considers the focus and scope of
the research question. Some background reading of the lit-
erature concerning the subject area as well as how to con-
duct qualitative interviews and the specific scientific
method you are applying will be necessary in the furthe
development of your research question(s) and it will add-
itionally facilitate the construction of an interview guide.
When preparing for qualitative interviewing it is import-
ant to be familiar with the data recording equipment being
used. The venue of the interview should also be considered
as it may affect the data collection. We recommend inter-
views be conducted at a time and place of the respondents’
convenience, in a comfortable setting, free from any poten-
tial disruptions and noise. In most cases, you will need for-
mal ethical approval. However, you will always need you
interviewees’ informed consent (Illing 2014).
Tip 3
Construct an interview guide and test your questions
Conducting a qualitative research interview means that you
may be asking your interviewees to reflect on matters that
are potentially important to them, in some cases even life-
changing. The phenomenon of your interest might be
important professionally, or you may be interviewing partici-
pants on how they experience illness or the loss of a loved
one. Therefore, you should develop your interview guide in
advance and conduct at least one test interview. By con-
ducting test interviews the novice researcher gains skills
prior to embarking on data collection. These test interviews
may be undertaken with peers or volunteers. They furnish
the researcher with an opportunity to explore language, the
clarity of the questions, and aspects of active listening. The
style of the interview is essential for creating a noninvasive
and open dialog with interviewees (Krag Jacobsen 1993).
Avoid using esoteric jargon in your research interview ques-
tions and instead adopt layman’s language when possible.
Qualitative interviews may be more or less open or struc-
tured. An unstructured or semi-structured interview guide
may include only one or a few predetermined questions
allowing the interviewer to explore issues
ought forward
y the interviewee. It is important that the interview guide
aligns with the methodological approach (Laksov et al.
2017). By contrast, a structured interview guide usually
includes predetermined questions posed in the same way to
all interviewees with the purpose of eliciting responses to
the exact same phrasing. In medical education, semi-
structured interviews are often applied, meaning that the
interview guide includes a number of predetermined ques-
tions (typically 5–15 questions) but the interviewer can
probe, in order to dig deeper, into the interviewees’
esponses through follow-up questions (Lingard and
Kennedy XXXXXXXXXXIt is usually a good idea to open the inter-
view with a few “easy” questions to make the interviewee
comfortable and to familiarize him/her with the subject of
the interview. A few examples are: “Please tell me, how long
have you been working here?”, “How did you first become
involved in teaching?” or “Why did you want to become a
nurse?” Further into the interview