The choice of a semi-structured interview was reached after exploring the literature relating to substance misuse and support persons. It was judged that a qualitative approach using semi- structured interviews would provide the best approach to use responses of the participant to guide data collection (Miles, Huberman & Saldana 2014). One to one semi-structured interviews constituted the primary data for this study. Interviews enabled the individuals to tell their stories, perceptions regarding their experiences of support and if their preferences for support were taken into consideration, thus, allowing the multiple realities to be elicited. To help aid with what questions should be asked during the semi-structured interviews, I attended the Drugs Research Network Scotland (2017) conference which included researchers, policymakers, and members of the Scottish Government, individuals with lived experience, and family and friends supporting individuals with substance use issues. I attended the family theme workshop and listened to talks on individual experiences of not only
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being a support person but also their experiences of support services. This conference allowed me the opportunity to develop ideas, which further enhanced the development of the aim and objectives from the identified gap in the literature review and reflect on possible questions for my semi-structured interviews.
Involving individuals with lived experiences in the process of developing research questions in regard to a particular population group, helps the research project to be guided by the individual/s as the ‘expert’ for a specific phenomenon and improve the study to have more value and reliability (Savin-Baden, Howell & Major 2013). I discussed with five support persons who attended the conference my initial idea for some questions which I thought about using within my interviews, to gauge if they felt the questions were appropriate or not. I discussed two of my working questions and the support persons agreed that they felt the questions were open, appropriate and they would have felt comfortable with how they were asked.
Interviews were all arranged at dates, times and places which suited the participants best. It was important that the setting and environment was right and convenient for the participant and where they felt most comfortable conducting the interviews. I offered the option for the interviews to be conducted in a room at one of the third sector organisations, Robert Gordon University or in their own homes. I offered refreshments and checked at the start of each session if the participant was comfortable in the setting and environment. One participant was interviewed in Robert Gordon University, four in their own homes and three within third sector organisation rooms. For the participants interviewed within their own homes, I made sure to adhere to the NHS lone working policy (NHS Grampian 2016) at all times. Participants were made aware that participation was entirely voluntary and that they could withdraw at any point, without having to give any reasons and with no consequences to their on-going support. Once I made sure that the participants were comfortable, I then discussed the study in detail and discussed the interview process. The participants were given adequate time to read over the consent form (Appendix 12) and were both signed and dated by the participant and me. It was highlighted that there was the potential that some questions might evoke feelings of sensitivity or potentially distressing feelings when discussing experiences of supporting individuals with substance misuse issues. It was considered with all participants that all responses would be treated entirely confidentially, and if participants felt unable to answer any questions, then they may terminate the session at any time or ask to move onto the next question. For this reason, interviews were only conducted Monday to Thursday, so access to additional support was available, which may not be available at weekends. All participants were able to contact the lead researcher and supervisory team if they had any queries regarding the research project, to make sure they were adequately informed but none did so.
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After each interview, I would de-brief with each participant on how they found the process and ask if there were any other questions or final points they would like to share or if there was anything they would like to add. All participants stated that they could not think of anything at that time. After each interview, I would send and discuss each transcription with my supervisory team and present the findings and delivery of the interviews. After the first interview it was noted that all the experiences shared appeared to be negative. After discussion with the supervisory team, it was agreed that perhaps participants thought I only wanted to hear about negative experiences so a question should be added that would identify if there were any positive experiences. This will be discussed in more detail in Chapter four. In the semi-structured interview schedule (Appendix 13), specific questions were identified, and this was supplemented with prompts when necessary. In keeping with the semi-structured approach detailed by Parahoo (2014) the questions were predetermined as were the prompts. In some instances, interviewees, while answering early questions, provided answers to questions posed later in the interview and where this happened the subject matter was not addressed a second time. All questions were covered with each respondent. Denzin and Lincoln (2006) describe that the purpose of qualitative research is to study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people give to them.