The goal of the qualitative analysis was to identify themes that were common across couples relating to the experience of giving and receiving support for depression. Interview data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA; Smith, Jarman, & Osborn, 1999). IPA attempts to understand how participants themselves make sense of particular experiences by enquiring about the special meanings of these experiences for them. This contrasts with traditional approaches to scientific research in that the aim is not to derive “an objective statement of the object or event itself’ (Smith, 1996a). The term ‘interpretative phenomenological analysis’ captures the duality inherent in this approach: while IPA strives to get as close as possible to the participant’s perspective, there is also recognition of the fact that research is a dynamic, interactive process. As Smith (1996a) states: “Access [to the participant’s world] is both dependant on, and complicated by, the researcher’s own conceptions which are required in order to make sense of that other personal world through a process of interpretative activity” (p. 264).
Smith et al. (1999) offer a detailed account of how to analyse interview transcripts using IPA but emphasise that “there is no single definitive way” to perform such an analysis: IPA is a personal process and it is therefore appropriate that the investigator make whatever adaptations seem appropriate to suit his or her way of working.
Of particular importance within the IPA approach is the investigator’s intimate knowledge of the data under investigation. In this study, the investigator’s familiarity with the interview data was ensured through a process that involved repeated exposure to the material. Thus, subsequent to interviewing a couple, the investigator listened to a tape-recording of the interview and made detailed notes on the issues arising. These notes were subsequently organised into a summary of the main themes and issues raised by the couple, which could
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itself be construed as a preliminary analysis. (As detailed above, the summary was then given to the couple, who were invited to comment on its validity and thus influence the direction of the analysis thereafter.) The next stage in the analysis involved a detailed reading and re-reading of the couple’s transcribed interview. Here the process followed was much as described by Smith et al. (1999). This involved an iterative process whereby points of interest or apparent significance were noted with each reading of a transcript and eventually developed into tentative theme titles - i.e. key words which seemed to capture the essence of what was being described in the text. The next stage involved looking for connections between the emerging theme titles and beginning to organise them into clusters, potentially reflecting some form of hierarchical relationship between themes and sub themes. It was important to check at this stage (and throughout the analytic process) that emerging theme clusters tallied with what participants had actually said in the interview. The derived themes and sub-themes were then organised into a coherent structure, excluding any that seemed inconsistent with the overall structure or which lacked evidence in the data. This process was repeated with each of the nine first interviews, with earlier analyses guiding later ones. Thus, themes which emerged in the course of analysing subsequent transcripts were compared with those previously derived, to determine whether they were more appropriately conceptualised as new themes or as exemplars or modifiers of an existing class. Once this process was complete, a master list of the themes for all nine couples was constructed and organised into a coherent overall framework. To be included in this final framework, it was necessary that a theme be supported in the interview data at both an individual and group level. (While a given theme needed to connect the couples’ accounts in a meaningful way, it was not necessary for the same theme to be evident in every couple’s account). Transcripts of the follow-up interviews were analysed in a similar way, using the master list of themes for the whole sample as a guide; care was taken to be attentive to the emergence of new themes as well as further illustrations of existing ones.
Credibility checks
Credibility checks were implemented at several points in the analytic process. First, providing participants with a summary of the major themes and issues that the investigator had discerned in the first interview could be construed as a type of ‘member validation’ - i.e. an opportunity to check the investigator’s interpretation of the data with participants (Smith, 1994). Several authors have proposed member validation as a potential criterion of validity in qualitative research (Elliott et al., 1999; Smith, 1996b; Stiles, 1993). It should be emphasised, however, that the interview summaries stayed close to the spirit of participants’ accounts and involved little interpretation. It is therefore perhaps not so surprising that, almost without exception, these were considered accurate in both detail and overall ‘flavour’ by participants. The summaries would inevitably have influenced the direction of the subsequent in-depth analysis of the interview data, so establishing their accuracy from participants’ point of view was clearly an important and relevant aspect of the analytic process.
A second type of credibility check on the derived themes and the overall structure into which they were organised was performed by a second researcher with expertise both in qualitative research methods and informal helping in couples. The second researcher conducted independent analyses of three full interview transcripts and these were then compared with the investigator’s analyses of the same three transcripts. There was considerable overlap in the themes identified by investigator and second researcher. Following the investigator’s analysis of the remaining transcripts, the investigator presented his findings to the second researcher (who had also listened to a substantial proportion of the taped interviews), to check their consistency with her reading of the data. Investigator and second researcher discussed areas of disagreement and themes were modified or abandoned accordingly. Finally, a third researcher, also with experience of qualitative research methods, listened to a selection of taped interviews and audited the themes identified by the investigator and second researcher at several points in the analytic process.
Chapter 3: Results
The qualitative analysis of the interview data will form the main part of this chapter. In order to set a context for these findings, I first present the quantitative data on participants’ relationship satisfaction, perceived empathy, current depressive symptoms, and attitudes towards emotional expression.
For clarity, the term ‘partner’ will refer to the member of the couple who is trying to help, unless the context is unambiguous; the term ‘person with depression’ (PWD) will refer to the member of the couple who was or had in the past been depressed.