Researcher Access

On the 13th January 2014 a meeting of the OOLs and the midwife OLs (MOLs) for each OptiBIRTH intervention site was held in TCD. I attended this meeting and introduced myself to the MOL and the OOL from the site in which the ethnography would take place. For anonymity purposes for the OOL, I will be referring to the OOL as a male for the remainder of this thesis. In the interest of this study I am not suggesting that the OOL is male but for this ethnography the OOL will be represented as male. With regards to the MOL, as the majority of midwives in Ireland are female, the midwife will be referred to in this study as female.

This was my first encounter with the MOL for the field-site. At the lunch break I was introduced to her by OptiBIRTH‟s post-doctoral researcher and described and discussed

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the ethnography with her. She was very welcoming to the ethnography and was

supportive of my coming to the field-site with her to be introduced to the clinical staff.

This was followed by a planned meeting with the MOL which took place on the 22nd January 2014. At this meeting, the MOL and I discussed the details of the embedded ethnography and how to access the antenatal clinic for the observation component of the study. At this meeting, I also provided the MOL with an information leaflet, designed for clinicians, outlining the aims of the study and informing staff in the hospital why I would be present during the OptiBIRTH trial (see Appendix 8). I made contact with the MOL again in February 2014 where we arranged a date for a meeting with clinic staff so I could introduce myself and my study in person. This meeting occurred on the 10th March 2014 and coincided with a clinician information session being held as part of the OptiBIRTH intervention in the antenatal clinic (see section 2.8). At the end of this meeting, I had an opportunity to present information on the ethnography to clinic staff collectively, provide them with the study information leaflet (see Appendix 8) and answer any questions that they had on the study at that time. This meeting additionally provided me with the opportunity to discuss with the Clinical Midwife Manager (CMM) my presence in the clinic and to ensure that she was agreeable to my presence in the clinic observing for the purposes of this ethnography.

Access to and my being present in the clinic for the ethnography was granted without any concerns and was met with support from both the CMM and the staff in the clinic. However, as I was a „stranger‟ to the field site, it was difficult for me to place myself in the clinic so as to have the best possible location to observe while simultaneously

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ensuring that I was not in the way of the running of the clinic. I decided then to situate myself at the entrance of the clinic, as only one of the doors is normally open so there is space to observe as well as not being in the midwives‟ way as they went about their clinical duties. If the clinic became extremely busy or if a midwife was dealing with a sensitive issue with a woman and I felt that I should remove myself, the CMM‟s office was open for me to place myself there with the door open. Overall, it took

approximately four months for myself and the midwives in the clinic to reach a comfort level where my presence was not seen as intrusive to their environment.

4.4

Sampling

The sample size for the OptiBIRTH trial is 120 women at each study site with

recruitment to this ethnography dependent on this sample. At the first booking visit to the field-site (at around 12 weeks‟ gestation), women who were eligible to take part in OptiBIRTH were provided with the main OptiBIRTH study information pack by the antenatal clinic staff member who was completing the booking. Women who returned a written consent form to the MOL agreeing to participate in OptiBIRTH provided the sample population for the ethnography (see Appendix 5). Purposive sampling was employed as it was deemed the most appropriate sampling strategy for recruiting women to the ethnography (interviews) from the sample population. Purposive

sampling relates to “the sample units are chosen because they have particular features or characteristics which will enable detailed exploration and understanding of the central themes and puzzles which the researcher wishes to study” (Ritchie et al, 2003, p.78). It is often used in qualitative research to facilitate the researcher to obtain rich data and to

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investigate the issues in question in a full and meaningful way (Patton, 2002). In this study, purposive sampling was used to gain a broad range of perspectives from women who were attending the antenatal classes or who solely used the website, and from clinicians from specific areas of the hospital such as the antenatal clinic and the labour ward.