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Chapter 4 Research Method
A letter was distributed to each staff member inviting them to be interviewed (n=34).
This contained an information leaflet outlining how long the interview may take,
where it would take place and how both written notes and audio recordings would be
made (Appendix 6). Staff were invited to contact the researcher by phone or email if
they wished to participate and thus give verbal consent. Twenty-four hours before
the interview a mutually convenient time for the interview was arranged with the
staff member wishing to participate and written consent was obtained (Appendix 8).
All participating staff chose to be interviewed at work during working hours and thus
scheduled an appropriate time for the interview to take place on their next shift.
It was important that if staff were to be interviewed at work they could be free from
disturbance for the duration of the interview. It was also important that they could be
interviewed in a private place. Hence the staff interviews took place in the “special
needs” room (see Appendix 13 – floor plan) on the unit which was quiet, largely free
from disturbance and had comfortable couches. The researcher prepared this room in
advance, ensuring the chairs and the tape recorder were suitably positioned and
drinking water was made available. The interviews lasted about 20-30 minutes. Staff
were on duty on the day they were interviewed and no staff member came in on their
day off. It is often argued that staff feel more comfortable talking when they do not
have to think about the work they have to do when the interview is over. However, it
was their choice not to be interviewed on their day off. The researcher aimed to
create a relaxed environment and began the interview by obtaining the participant’s
demographic information.
The first question asked was also aimed at enabling the participant to relax and
reflect on the focus of the interview. It asked the participant to tell the researcher
about one of the residents they had looked after that morning. It can be seen in
Figure 4.2 that this question stemmed from one of the attributes delineated from the
concept analysis. This attribute is around residents being involved in decision-
making and their capacity being encouraged and maintained. The theme of the
question was to ascertain whether or not residents were involved in making decisions
on a daily basis. If the participant found this difficult to answer the researcher would
use probes and prompts like asking them what options or choices are available to