Sick and Tired: Understanding and Managing Sleep Difficulties in ...

fundamental aspects of the perspective” 1) people respond to life experiences on the
basis of the meaning(s) of that experience to them; 2) the meaning of life experiences
arise out of the social interaction that someone has with others and society; and 3) that
meanings may change over time as a person continually interprets and re-interprets
daily events. Therefore how an individual interprets an experience may be influenced by
their past and future, and the interpretations of others gained through social interaction.
Consequently, this approach lends itself to the focus of health psychology research and
has the additional advantage in that it advocates the use of an empathic and flexible
questioning approach, which are important components of psychological enquiry.
In accordance with hermeneutic phenomenology, IPA acknowledges that the researcher
plays an active part in the data analysis, as their prior knowledge and professional
background will influence how they interpret people‟s experiences, particularly playing
a key role in identifying the underlying concepts that the participant may articulate but
may not be consciously aware of (Smith & Eatough, 2007). It should therefore be noted
that the transcripts were analysed by two registered health psychologists (Alice
Theadom and Mark Cropley) who were involved in the previous two quantitative
studies of this thesis and who had experience of working with people with FMS.
Psychology is a „scientific study of people, the mind and behaviour‟, with the
specialised branch of health psychology focusing on the prevention and management of
illness; the identification of psychological factors contributing to physical illness; the
improvement of the health care system, and the formulation of health policy. The
conduct of this study using IPA methods, and the interpretation of the data, was
therefore based on the health psychology perspective and consequently the researchers‟
previous experience and knowledge will have influenced their interpretations of the
findings. However, an advantage of the IPA approach is that when coding the
transcripts, the researcher is constantly brought back to the raw data to ensure that the
interpretations are valid (Smith, 2003).
The IPA approach has not previously been used in FMS and therefore had potential to
provide a unique contribution to the evidence base by exploring in more detail people‟s
experiences of sleep and how poor sleep quality affects them.
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