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

and medication use. A sound check was completed before commencing the interview to
ensure the sounds quality was sufficient to enable accurate transcription. A brief semi-
structured interview schedule (Table 11, p. 112) was developed to guide the interview,
asking broad questions about the participant‟s illness, symptom experience and daytime
functioning. The interview schedule enabled the researcher to explore areas relating to
the research question, while providing the flexibility for the participant to talk about the
issues that were important to them and for the researcher to explore interesting concepts
emerging during the interview. In accordance with the IPA approach the questions
remained broad, to enable the participant to express openly what the experience meant
to them. Prompts were only used if they were required to facilitate the interview and to
encourage the participant to talk about their experiences. All interviews were conducted
at participants‟ home to enable participants to feel comfortable in their surroundings
during the interview. Interviews were conducted with only the researcher and
participant present, although it should be noted that for two participants, other people
were present in other areas of the house which may have influenced how participants
responded. The interviews were recorded using a digital voice recorder and were later
transcribed verbatim and checked by an independent researcher for accuracy of
transcription. All 16 participants who met the study criteria and expressed an interest in
the study completed the interview.
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