Interviews

Question 1

Interviews AO1

3

Answer 1

Interviews can be in the form of open questions or closed questions
Can be semi-structured, meaning the psychiatrist has a
set of questions that need to be asked, but can also add questions to follow important themes in the interview
Can be unstructured, where the psychiatrist decides what questions to ask depending on the patients previous answers

Question 2

Interviews Eval.

Answer 2

Strengths
- Gives in-depth qualitative data though open questions, lets theme express feelings

• If recorded then can be assessed using content analysis then this can be done again by a different assessor to give more objectivity

Weaknesses
- If unstructured, then the interviewer must decide what to ask based on ‘important themes’ which can be subjective

• Unstructured & semi-structured lacks reliability as ppts. won’t get the same questions
• Social desirability bias, where ppts want to present themselves in a good light and underplay their problems

Question 3

Interview example & link to Eval.

Answer 3

Vallentine (2010)

Vallentine used semi-structured interviews to discover the impact of groupwork on psychoeducation (education about their disorder)

42 male patients who had been judged to ‘lack insight about their condition’

semi-structured - Subjective, questions asked not the same for everyone (what was helpful about the group?’, ‘what participants valued and why’, so lacks reliability, did allow patients to express their feelings ‘it helped me understand the symptoms I’ve got and how different treatments can help’

These open questions can be assessed using content analysis, then recorded to provide objectivity. This was done, and a second rater repeated this Content Analysis, with 60% agreement ,’, More objectivity