Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
were made on the items in the questionnaire especially that some
questions were repeated in a slightly different form in different
sections of the questionnaire. This discussion demonstrated that
respondents had a high level of attention to, and engagement with,
the research process.
The focus group took place during class time scheduled for a
sociology lecture and eight students (male=3, female=5) were
available for participation. Respondents were made cognizant of
the consent form and ethical issues relating to confidentiality issues
were agreed upon by participants and researchers in an effort to
conform to best practice regarding the issue of informed consent.
Subjects were once again informed that participation was voluntary
and that no penalties would accrue if they wished to withdraw at
this stage. Respondents were then informed of the areas that were
going to be discussed, assured that all responses were confidential
and that they were free to leave, or not to answer questions, at
anytime. The first author acted as facilitator while the second
author acted as note taker.
Ethical consideration
An extensive discussion occurred prior to both administration of the
questionnaire and running the focus group. Issues discussed
included the responsibility of the researchers to ensure the
anonymity of the respondents. In particular respondents were
assured that no-one would be identifiable from the information
given on the questionnaire. Respondents were told that in
quantitative type of surveys it was the aggregate of their responses,
which was of interest to the researchers. The study was carried out
with the full consent of respondents who understood that they could
refuse to take part and could withdraw at any time. For the focus
group research, respondents were told that the tapes and notes
would be held in a secure place and that there would be no way of
identifying any individual response from this material. They were
assured that only the researchers would have access to the material
and that no individual would be identifiable from their responses.
They were asked not to discuss anything that occurred during the
session with outsiders and that they should not repeat outside the
group information that could identity participants. They were then
given a consent form, which the researchers reviewed with them
prior to tape-recording the session. After ensuring that respondents
understood the nature of the task they were involved in they were
then asked to sign the consent form.
Data analysis
Responses were imputed and analysed using SPSS (v13.5) while
the notes from the focus group were transcribed and analysed for
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