The search for an optimum model of involvement may prove elusive, but the need to research and debate different strategies, to avoid tokenism and exploitation, remains.
The agenda of involving service users and their carers more meaningfully in the development, delivery and evaluation of professional education in health is gaining in importance. The paper reports on a symposium which presented three diverse initiatives, established within a school of nursing and midwifery in the United Kingdom. These represent different approaches and attempts to engage service users and in some instances carers more fully in professional education aimed at developing mental health practitioners. Each is presented as achieving movement on a continuum of participation from service users as passive recipients to service users as collaborators and co-researchers. The paper concludes with a discussion of the lessons to be learnt which will hopefully stimulate service user involvement on a wider basis.
This comparison of interview methods was made during a preliminary investigation into the experiences and expectations of patients discharged from an acute psychiatric hospital. The data was collected by four unstructured and four semi-structured interviews and included the views of respondents regarding the method used. A comparison of both interview methods was made. Analysis followed Miles & Huberman's (1994) guidance for data analysis, from which conclusions were drawn. Data were first reduced, then displayed using cross-case analysis. The use of Miles & Huberman's (1994) model of data analysis proved effective in allowing for data to be displayed and compared in a robust manner. Findings related to the comparative analysis showed that unstructured interviews resulted in greater depth and enabled positive and negative aspects of care to be identified in greater detail than semi-structured interviewing. Additionally, when asked to reflect upon the interview methods used, respondents found that unstructured interviewing allowed them to describe their experiences and expectations in greater detail than semi-structured interviews.
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