The complexities of conducting sensitive interviews using an IPA approach

This paper will highlight the complexities associated with sensitive interviewing when undertaking a study using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). This study involved interviews with carers of people with... [ view full abstract ]

This paper will highlight the complexities associated with sensitive interviewing when undertaking a study using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). This study involved interviews with carers of people with advanced dementia.
IPA is a qualitative approach which seeks to offer an ‘insider’s perspective’ of an experience which cannot be adequately replaced by any external analysis or explanation and concerns itself with how specific individuals deal with specific situations or events in their lives. This personal view of the individual’s perspective is required for a comprehensive understanding of human behaviour. The IPA researcher aims to try to understand the participant’s world, describing what it is like, keeping a close focus on meaning rather than causal relations. By achieving this, it will provide a critical and conceptual commentary on the participant’s personal sense making activities. This methodology is suited to understanding family carers’ experiences of providing end of life care to individuals with dementia at home and is ideally suited to examine how family carers make sense of their situation and allows the researcher to interpret their accounts of this life experience. Semi-structured interviews are purported to be an ideal method of data collection used when exploring the lived experience of participants who care for individuals with dementia at end of life and allow for such sensitive issues to be explored and probed if necessary to provide clarity on the subject.
This presentation illuminates the experiences of the researcher who conducted interviews with carers of those with advanced dementia and examine the complexities of negotiating access to participants, using a defined interview schedule, and discussing the sensitive area of end of life with participants. Interviews in qualitative research can be beneficial and curative for researchers and participants alike and the concept of therapeutic interviews will be considered.