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Open-ended Interviews (open-ended + interview)
Selected AbstractsAcute leukaemia or highly malignant lymphoma patients' quality of life over two years: a pilot studyEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CANCER CARE, Issue 1 2001L. Persson The aim of this study was, first, to investigate the quality of life and sense of coherence for acute leukaemia and malignant lymphoma patients at the start of treatment and over 2 years. A second aim was to compare questionnaire responses with patients' statements in open-ended interviews. A consecutive sample of 16 patients responded to the Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ-C30), Lund Gerontological Centre questionnaire and the Sense of Coherence Scale at the start of treatment and after 12 and 24 months. The QLQ-C30 questionnaire was administered also after 4, 8, 16 and 20 months. Tape-recorded open-ended interviews were conducted every 4 months before the patients responded to the questionnaires. Quality of life (QoL) and sense of coherence were scored more highly at the beginning of treatment for patients who did not relapse, than for those who relapsed. This difference remained throughout the study period. There was no correspondence in responses between questionnaire and personal interviews, although the results from the interviews, in some aspects, validated the result from the QLQ-C30. Those patients who relapsed may have had different prerequisites or been in a worse position at the onset of the disease and, reasonably, they needed more compensatory nursing care. More knowledge about the correspondence between a person's perceived QoL when discussed in personal interviews compared with responses given in standardised QoL questionnaires is needed before any assumption about clinical relevance can be made. [source] Survival of intimate partner violence as experienced by womenJOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 3 2005Aune Flinck MNSc Aims and objectives., The study set out to describe women's experiences of intimate partner violence, the consequences of such violence, the help they received and women's experiences of their survival. Background., Social and health professionals do not have sufficient ability to identify and help families who suffer from intimate partner violence. Methods for identifying and treating partner violence not have been developed adequately. Method., The study was conducted in Finland by loosely formulated open-ended interviews with seven battered women. The data were analysed by inductive qualitative content analysis. Findings., Women had past experience of maltreatment and a distressing climate at their parental home. Women experienced both themselves and their spouse as having weak identities; their ideals, patterns of marriage and sexuality were different. Violence occurred in situations of disagreement. Women tried to strike a balance between independence and dependence in the relationship. The different forms of couple violence were interlinked. The women sought help when their health and social relationships got worse. An awareness of the problem, taking action, counselling and social relationships helped them survive. Religiousness was a factor that involved commitment to the couple relationship, made religious demands on women and promoted the recovery of integrity. Conclusions., Intimate partner violence was associated with the family model, childhood experience of maltreatment, the partners' weak identity and conflicts between individualism and familism. Social and healthcare professionals need competence in early intervention and skills to discuss moral principles, sexuality, and violence in a way that is free of prejudice and condemning attitudes. Spiritual approaches in the context of interventions should be taken into consideration. Relevance to clinical practice., In a clinical context, nurses should be aware of the symptoms of violence, and they should have skills in dealing with intimate moral and spiritual issues. [source] The Legacy of Childhood Sexual Abuse and Family AdversityJOURNAL OF NURSING SCHOLARSHIP, Issue 4 2008Donna S. Martsolf Purpose: To describe the process by which childhood adversity influences the life course of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Design: A community-based, qualitative, grounded-theory design. Methods: In this grounded theory study, data were drawn from open-ended interviews conducted as part of a larger study of women's and men's responses to sexual violence. The current study indicates the experiences of 48 female and 40 male survivors of childhood sexual abuse and family adversity. Data were analyzed using the constant comparison method. Findings: Participants described a sense of inheriting a life of abuse and adversity. The process by which childhood adversity influences the life course of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse is labeled Living the Family Legacy. The theory representing the process of Living the Family Legacy includes three major life patterns: (a) being stuck in the family legacy, (b) being plagued by the family legacy, and (c) rejecting the family legacy/creating a new one. Associated with these life patterns are three processes by which participants passed on a legacy to others, often their children: (a) passing on the family legacy, (b) taking a stab at passing on a new legacy, and (c) passing on a new legacy. Conclusions: The legacy of abuse and adversity has a profound effect on the lives of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. There are several trajectories by which the influence of childhood adversity unfolds in the lives of adult survivors and by which the legacy is passed on to others. Clinical Relevance: The model representing the theoretical process of Living the Family Legacy can be used by clinicians who work with survivors of childhood sexual abuse and childhood adversity, especially those who have parenting concerns. [source] Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Physician and Lay Models of the Common ColdMEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2008Roberta D. Baer We compare physicians and laypeople within and across cultures, focusing on simi-larities and differences across samples, to determine whether cultural differences or lay,professional differences have a greater effect on explanatory models of the common cold. Data on explanatory models for the common cold were collected from physicians and laypeople in South Texas and Guadalajara, Mexico. Structured interview materials were developed on the basis of open-ended interviews with samples of lay informants at each locale. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information from each sample on causes, symptoms, and treatments for the common cold. Consensus analysis was used to estimate the cultural beliefs for each sample. Instead of systematic differences between samples based on nationality or level of professional training, all four samples largely shared a single-explanatory model of the common cold, with some differences on subthemes, such as the role of hot and cold forces in the etiology of the common cold. An evaluation of our findings indicates that, although there has been conjecture about whether cultural or lay,professional differences are of greater importance in understanding variation in explanatory models of disease and illness, systematic data collected on community and professional beliefs indicate that such differences may be a function of the specific illness. Further generalizations about lay,professional differences need to be based on detailed data for a variety of illnesses, to discern patterns that may be present. Finally, a systematic approach indicates that agreement across individual explanatory models is sufficient to allow for a community-level explanatory model of the common cold. [source] The Workers' Compensation System: Worker friend or foe?AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 4 2004Lee Strunin PhD Abstract Background The workers' compensation system was designed to help injured workers who have substantial medical expenses and perhaps have lost a great deal of income. This study determines both similarities and differences in how workers experience their interactions with the workers' compensation systems in Florida and Wisconsin. Methods Ethnographic open-ended interviews with 204 workers from Florida and 198 workers in Wisconsin were conducted. All the workers had back injuries in 1990 and were either paid workers' compensation temporary disability benefits for at least 4 weeks or received permanent disability benefits or compromise settlements. Results Some interactions with the workers' compensation system were positive. However, the majority of respondents in both states experienced their encounters with the workers' compensation system as cumbersome, frustrating, and demeaning. Conclusions Mistrust, stigmatization, payment delays, and refusal of insurer personnel to pay benefits contribute to workers' negative experiences with the workers' compensation system. These insurer behaviors raise the costs to injured workers of workers' compensation benefits and thus may reduce the propensity of eligible workers to apply for benefits. Am. J. Ind. Med. 45:338,345, 2004. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Rural parents with urban children: social and economic implications of migration for the rural elderly in ThailandPOPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 3 2007John Knodel Abstract The present study explores the social and economic consequences of the migration of adult children to urban areas for rural parents in Thailand. Attention is given to the circumstances under which such migration takes place, including the role parents play in the process and the extent to which the implications of migration for the parents are taken into consideration. The analysis relies primarily on open-ended interviews conducted in 2004 with older age parents with migrant children in four purposely selected rural communities that were studied ten years earlier. Our findings suggest that migration of children to urban areas contributes positively to the material well-being of their elderly parents who remain in rural areas. Negative impacts of migration on social support, defined in terms of maintaining contact and visits, have been attenuated by the advent of technological changes in communication and also by improvements in transportation. Phone contact, especially through mobile phones, is now pervasive, in sharp contrast to the situation ten years earlier when it was extremely rare. Much of the change in Thailand in terms of the relationships between rural parents and their geographically dispersed adult children is quite consistent with the concept of the ,modified extended family', a perspective that has become common in discussions regarding elderly parents in industrial and post-industrial societies but rarely applied to the situation of elderly parents in developing country settings. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | |||||||||||||