Answers to unasked questions: Writing in the margins

Abstract

This qualitative study is a secondary analysis of comments spontaneously provided by participants in a quantitative survey. Narrative comments were written by 25% (n = 205) of the adults with multiple sclerosis who responded to the survey. Forms of unsolicited written comments included responses to questions written in the margins of the questionnaires and narratives on blank booklet pages. The purpose of this study was to apprehend what participants were telling us, particularly in the responses that they had written in the margins. Qualitative methods were used to identify and explore major categories in the participants' comments. Those who wrote unsolicited comments perceived their economic resources as less adequate, were experiencing greater family and social demands related to their illness, and were more likely to live in a nonmetropolitan county than other respondents. Secondary analysis of this rich qualitative data enhances the depth of our understanding of the person's experience with chronic illness.

The roles of fatigue, depression, and Big Five Personality traits in males with and without multiple sclerosis disease

“…There is no clear evidence about the specific neurobiological and neuroimmunological nature of depression in patients with MS (Siegert & Abernethy, 2005), a fact that seems to be right for the case of fatigue in this study. As other studies indicated, higher fatigue and depression levels in patients with MS might be associated with their limitations in social and interpersonal relationships, which are the result of the chronic disease over time (Clayton, Rogers, & Stuifbergen, 1999). Also, these findings supported the presence of comorbidity hypothesis in patients with MS.…”

Perceptions of a Quality of Work-Life Survey from the Perspective of Employees in a Canadian Cancer Centre

“…Talking about the survey triggered participants to discuss issues that affected their own QWL but were not reflected in the content of the survey. A similar finding has been previously reported (Clayton et al, 1999). While it would not have been feasible to include all these issues in the survey, this finding merits some attention.…”

Conflict rationalisation: How family members cope with a diagnosis of brain stem death

“…sorting to: separate quantitative data from qualitative data [Clayton et al, 1999], interview data from observational data [West and Oldfather, 1995], to focus on one type of data, to identify a sub-sample of the primary participant population [Kearney et al, 1994] or so that analysis can be selectively limited to specific themes or topics [Gallo and Knafl, 1998]. The latter is the case in this study.…”