Collective data analysis in palliative care research: Process and outcomes
2006 Conference
This talk focuses on the data analysis stage of a research project, which was where we made sense of all the information we had gathered. The research was about people’s experience of living with life limiting conditions like cancer and heart failure, and what they thought about health and social care services. 25 people took part in interviews or small discussion groups. An important element of the research was the involvement of a group of service users to input to and guide the research. The Service User Research Advisory Group (SURAG) met 32 times over the 3 years of the research involving 9 people in all. The analysis part of the research was thorough, complex and took place in two stages:
- As information was collected from participants initial analytic ideas were formed by the researcher and discussed with SURAG members.
- When all research information had been collected we systematically went through it all as a group to identify and agree the themes. This involved us meeting 14 times over a 9-month period, to go through transcripts amounting to 140,000 words.
The input of members of the SURAG was crucial. There were differences between the initial analysis and the group analysis.
Authors
Cotterell ~ Phil
Phil Cotterell is a research Fellow in the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University working with Peter Beresford. He is the lead researcher for the 'Identifying the impact of service user involvement on the lives of people affected by cancer' project funded by Macmillan from the 2006 NCRI Conference
View all articles by this authorCowdrey ~ Di
Members of the Service User Research Advisory. Di Cowdrey is a retired State Enrolled Nurse who has two children and two grandchildren. She has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, other physical disabilities and is the chair of West Sussex Disability Network and vice-chair of Worthing Shopmobility. She worked on the research being discussed at conference since the beginning of the project.
View all articles by this authorPaine ~ Mandy
Member of the Service User Research Advisory Group. Mandy is married with two sons and has end stage Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. She wants to challenge perceptions of life limiting conditions and, with Di, has developed a new group for people with any life limiting condition. Mandy has participated in a variety of different initiatives since involvement in the research being discussed at this conference.
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