Pilot and Main Study Interviews

Having explained my methodological approach and the methods employed in carrying out my research, this section gives an outline of the interviews, both for the pilot and main study.

During the period while I was awaiting ethical approval, I received approaches from several individuals who wished to talk with me about their miscarriage. I had to decline to talk with them within the confines of the study I was

undertaking, but I did agree to meet with them as their parish minister, solely in a pastoral capacity. One was a mum who had lost several babies through miscarriage (within the ten year parameter). She realised that it was outwith the scope of my research but wanted to speak with someone who, in her words,

“knew a wee bit about what she was going through.” A wife and husband asked me about how they should deal with friends who had just lost a child. In

conversation, I sensed that while a friend had miscarried, this was being used as an opportunity to discuss their own grief as it became apparent that they had experienced more than one miscarriage. I was also contacted by one woman who had experienced her miscarriage over fifty years previously, and

spontaneously (with obvious emotion as she started to cry) mentioned the actual date of the loss. To be anxious to talk about an event fifty years in the past indicates that the event in itself must have had a major impact on the individual. The final approach that was made outwith the study parameter was from a mother who simply hadn’t taken in the fact that the study was for those who had lost a child at least ten years previously.

These requests and encounters provided anecdotal evidence, which backed up by the lack of literature, that there was a significant lack of support and understanding for those who had experienced early miscarriage.

2.2.7.1 Pilot Study

My primary motivation for conducting a pilot study was to gain experience in interviewing and to inform the construction of my prompt questions. It also served to familiarise myself with transcribing and carrying out data analysis.

However, as often happens, it generated information that was hugely significant

for my overall project and as I had ethical permission to use this, I was glad to include it as an important aspect of my work. The three interviews not only informed my interview questions and technique, they also generated a wealth of data that deserves to be acknowledged and recorded.

The women were all from within my own congregation who had experienced an early pregnancy loss at least ten years previously. They were interviewed using a series of prompt questions (Appendix 7). These were sufficiently structured to meet the aim and objectives of the study) while ensuring that the data collected were consistent (Brink 1989, 165).

Each of the participants had formed a view as to the purpose of the research.

Their view was largely self-constructed as the invitation to participate came from a brief article in the parish magazine saying I was undertaking academic research into the religious and spiritual support needs of parents who had lost a child during early pregnancy. The participants had sought me out simply to talk about their own past events. In fact, it became quite a challenge to postpone our discussion until I had reached the point of obtaining ethical approval and making arrangements for an interview to take place. I had been unaware that any of these women had suffered a miscarriage, even though I knew two of them extremely well having been actively involved as their minister: for one, during a prolonged illness and for the other having known her for over twenty years, having conducted funerals, weddings and baptisms for immediate family members.

From the initial contact, there was no doubt in my mind that their miscarriages had been suppressed not necessarily from their own consciousness (that would be determined within the interview) but from discussion with others. These mothers had been deeply affected by their miscarriage. Indeed, even at this initial contact stage (and for two it was within a very public setting) there were tears. These women who were to become research participants were (in my opinion) desperate to talk, they were desperate to help, and they desperately wished for something positive to be the result.

One phrase from the pilot which still echoes in my mind was: ‘I know this is not what you want to hear!’ It was only used once during the formal recording of the interviews. However, my journal notes had the phrase (or variations of it) at least four times in each case, either at the invitation to participate stage,

immediately prior to switching on the tape recorder or after the recorder was switched off. The more I reflected on this, the more I became convinced that these participants were sharing with me their experience of miscarriage, as they remembered it and have reflected on it over the years, regardless of whether it would help my research question or not. Furthermore, these comments were pointing towards a deeper issue, that being, the ‘unspeakable’ nature of early pregnancy loss for many women.

On completion of the pilot, the initial prompt questions were supplemented and adapted prior to commencing the main study (Appendix 8).

2.2.7.2 Main Study

The main study consisted of twelve interviews. I have already detailed the process followed in terms of obtaining my sample and the conduct of the

interviews. In this section, I will briefly comment on the interviews themselves, much of which was derived from my field notes (a summary of which can be found in Appendix 9).

Participants for the main study were sought by issuing information notices in my church magazine which goes to every member. Such notices were also sent to fourteen colleagues, in my own and neighbouring Presbyteries, who agreed to include them in their own church magazines. In addition, I made contact with three local Presbyteries and requested that my notices be issued to local

parishes.⁴⁹ Two participants were recruited through Presbytery contact, the rest through my own magazine and word of mouth thereafter. Those who made contact were made aware of the purpose behind the research, the exclusion criteria and a clear statement that the research findings would be used to

49 A Presbytery consists of a group of churches within a geographical area and has monthly business meetings at which ministers and representative elders attend. This allowed for contact with approximately 180 congregations. Since I received the required number of participants there was no need to follow-up or widen the geographical search.

produce a thesis.⁵⁰ They were also informed that I am a parish minister

researching how I (and other pastoral care givers) might better support women who have experienced early miscarriage. A demographic profile of the

participants can be found in Appendix 10.

Each volunteer was asked for their preferred location for the interview. Ten selected their own home. Two of the interviews took place in other locations, one in the person’s own church vestry and the other in the vestry of my church.

Prior to conducting the interviews, I carried out a risk assessment which can be found in Appendix 5. Only one participant (F12) brought another person with her for support (her mother). The meetings lasted approximately two hours in each case. However, some of this time was spent in informal conversation to put both the researcher and the interviewee at ease. The recorded interviews varied in length from twenty five minutes to one hour and twenty minutes.

These interviews were also audio recorded which allowed for the reproduction of a complete and accurate account of what was actually said, rather than relying on my selectively taken notes, which increased data reliability (Holloway 1997, 94-95). As a technophobe, the caution issued by Kirsten Easton, Judith McComish and Rivka Greenberg (2000, 704) that equipment failure and environmental conditions might seriously threaten the research undertaken, was borne in mind.

They advise that the researcher must at all times ensure that the recording equipment functions well and that spare batteries, tapes, and so on, are available. This proved to be sage advice. The Interview with F11 had to be paused twice as the batteries ran out of power and, after replacing, the

recording device stopped working for some reason. I then finished the interview using the recording function on my mobile phone.

Field notes (or memoing) are a secondary data source in qualitative research. It is the researcher’s field notes that record what the researcher hears, sees, experiences and thinks in the course of collecting and reflecting on the process (Miles & Huberman 1984, 69). Since the human mind tends to forget quickly,

50 Via the Participant Information Sheet.

field notes by the researcher are crucial in qualitative research to retain data gathered (Lofland & Lofland 1999, 5). The researcher must be disciplined to record, subsequent to each interview, as comprehensively as possible, but without judgmental evaluation, for example: “What happened and what was involved? Who was involved? Where did the activities occur? Why did an incident take place and how did it actually happen?” (Groenewald 2004, 15). However, field notes in themselves involve interpretation and so must be seen as part of the analysis rather than data collection (Morgan 1997, 57-58).

I took copious notes before and during each interview recording such things as setting, ambience, location of the participant in relation to the researcher, the participant’s poise and posture. I paid particular attention to the participant when there was a prolonged silence and correlated their hand movements or whether there were tears in her eyes.

Immediately after the interview, and on returning to my car, I jotted down some immediate impressions as to the session and what happened. Thereafter, later in the evening, I made time to reflect on the interview itself and write a reflective summary.

My initial reflections on the interviews echoed those of the pilot study. The interviewees wished to assist me in my research which was often referred to as being very important. However, the motivation behind participating was to do something that would be of help to others who are going through what they experienced. The creation of the I-Poems and coding analysis in chapters 3 & 4 present the details of what was recorded in the interviews. Yet, it appeared obvious that these women did not receive what they would have viewed as appropriate support.