Interviewing is a frequently deployed data collection method in grounded theory research. Theoretical sampling is a core feature of the grounded theory method. Theoretical sampling is commonly ...understood as a means for sampling participants with a set of theoretical considerations in mind. However, theoretical sampling also occurs in the actual data generating process, for example through interviewing. Here, we illustrate how interviewing can be used as a vehicle for theoretical sampling. We discuss how to set up an interview study for it to be amenable to theoretical sampling. We show how interviewing and theoretical sampling align as the study proceeds and how interviewing in grounded theory can steer the course for theoretical sampling. We demonstrate how co-construction of data in grounded theory interviewing fuels theoretical sampling. Finally, we show that proceeding with questions for the purpose of theoretical sampling requires reflexivity and flexibility on the part of the researcher. We conclude that generating and analyzing data through the course of interviewing allows the researcher to probe into, expand on, and saturate key concepts and categories which collectively steer the inquiry and subsequent sampling. In the absence of theoretical sampling, it is not possible to grasp the basis for modifying interview questions or to decipher what or how questions should be asked, and for what purpose.
The media influences how we perceive and understand the world, groups of people, and events. The media has been criticised for portraying older people and aging predominantly negatively. In 2020, ...older people became the focal point of governmental responses in the management of the coronavirus pandemic. In this article, we explore how older people were represented in the officially most legitimate part of Irish news media during the first year of coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. A sample of 137 articles was drawn from Ireland's national broadcasting company (Raidió Teilifís Éireann) online news content, and thematic analysis was applied to interrogate representations of older people in these data from a social constructivist perspective. Older people featured as ‘the face of COVID-19’ due to their constant and accentuated framing as especially vulnerable to the virus. Older adults were construed as a burden to the public, families, and the healthcare system and as a risk to healthcare workers. They were portrayed as powerless and rendered almost completely ‘voiceless’ as their own views rarely featured in the news content. The social constructions of older persons during the coronavirus pandemic reflected and exceeded the (typically implicit) ageism in contemporary western societies.
We interviewed university graduates of 2020 in Ireland to understand how the coronavirus pandemic had affected them. Demonstrating a keen awareness of their mental health, participants had adopted ...self-care practices such as mindfulness. They recounted positive experiences of life in their ‘lockdown homes’ with supportive families. Some were embarking on normative adult pathways sooner than anticipated while others opted for postgraduate study to bide time. Participants reported heightened worry/anxiety and had limited their media use in response. Their plans did not extend beyond the immediate future, reflecting a degree of resignation. The participants accepted the strict constraints associated with pandemic management in Ireland. They did not view themselves as members of a group that was likely to experience the long-term costs of the pandemic but rather were attempting to negotiate their own pathway through labour market uncertainty while also demonstrating high levels of solidarity towards vulnerable groups in society.
In the era of global ageing, amid political concerns about increasing care needs and long-term sustainability of current care regimes, most high-income economies are seeking to minimise the use of ...institutional care and to expand formal home care for their older populations. In long-term care reforms, concerns about public funding, formal providers and the paid care workforce are foremost. However, an integral yet hidden part of all these reforms is the stealthily growing role of family carers. This article aims to identify and spell out how developments in formal home care bring about different modes of increasing, encouraging and necessitating family care inputs, across welfare states. Using secondary sources, three different modes were identified, and the article outlines the logic of each mechanism, drawing on illustrative examples of policy dynamics in both European and Asian countries. Family care inputs have increased through policy changes that are not explicitly or primarily about family care, but rather about expansion or changes in formal care. In some cases, this is explicit, in other cases something that happens 'through the back door'. Nonetheless, in all cases there are implications for the family caregivers' time, health and employment options. Future studies are needed to examine longitudinal trends from a comparative perspective to confirm our findings and elucidate how government commitments to formal home care provision and financing interact with the changing nature and volume of family caregiving.
People with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) engage with a broad range of health care services from symptom onset to end-of-life care. We undertook a grounded theory study to identify processes ...that underpin how and why people with ALS engage with health care services. Using theoretical sampling procedures, we sampled 34 people from the Irish ALS population-based register during September 2011 to August 2012. We conducted in-depth interviews with participants about their experiences of health care services. Our study yielded new insights into how people with ALS engage with services and adapt to loss. People with ALS live with insurmountable loss and never regain what they have already lost. Loss for people with ALS is multidimensional and includes loss of control. The experience of loss of control prompts people with ALS to search for control over health care services but exerting control in health care services can also include rendering control to service providers. People with ALS negotiate loss by exerting control over and rendering control to health care services. Our findings are important for future research that is attuned to how people with terminal illness exert control in health care services and make decisions about care in the context of mounting loss.
•Loss in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis includes loss of control.•People with ALS adapt to loss even though they feel unable to control loss.•People with ALS adapt to loss by exerting control in decision-making about care.•People with ALS feel in control of care when they access services on their own terms.•Our findings contradict research suggesting that people with ALS regain control.
We draw on Bourdieu’s and Goffman’s theories to elaborate the novel idea of dependency as status in old age, a concept that emerged from our Grounded Theory study conducted with 46 older adults (26 ...women and 20 men) living in and around Dublin, Ireland. The research participants’ portrayals of (in)dependence and assistance reflected their access to and use of social and symbolic (age) capital. Older adults derived social capital from supportive family relations or trusting relationships with formal care providers, and deployed such capital to signal their status as “cared for” individuals. Age capital—constructions of deservingness drawing on advanced age, age-related disabilities, and lifelong contributions—was used by older adults to frame and justify acceptance of help. We argue that where older adults are able to draw on age capital or social capital, they can signal their position as “cared for” individuals who display and acknowledge their dependency, and transform it into a marker of status. Conversely, some participants were keen to present themselves as independent. These participants made downward comparisons with others whom they saw as “worse off” or, in their view, as insufficiently responsible for their own health and well-being. In the contemporary Western frame, dependency is to be avoided at all costs, but we argue that some older people are able to embrace dependency in a way that reflects and demonstrates their status and agency. Care professionals and members of informal networks can make a significant difference to older persons’ acceptance of help, care, and support by offering services in a manner that affirms the care recipients’ worth and agency.
Objective
Grounded theory (GT) is an established qualitative research method, but few papers have encapsulated the benefits, limits, and basic tenets of doing GT research on user and provider ...experiences of health care services. GT can be used to guide the entire study method, or it can be applied at the data analysis stage only.
Methods
We summarize key components of GT and common GT procedures used by qualitative researchers in health care research. We draw on our experience of conducting a GT study on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients' experiences of health care services.
Findings
We discuss why some approaches in GT research may work better than others, particularly when the focus of study is hard‐to‐reach population groups. We highlight the flexibility of procedures in GT to build theory about how people engage with health care services.
Conclusion
GT enables researchers to capture and understand health care experiences. GT methods are particularly valuable when the topic of interest has not previously been studied. GT can be applied to bring structure and rigor to the analysis of qualitative data.
Caregiver burden affects the physical, psychological and emotional well-being of the caregiver. The purpose of this analysis was to describe an informal caregiver cohort (n = 81), their subjective ...assessment of burden and difficulties experienced as a result of providing care to people with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
Using mixed methods of data collection and analysis, we undertook a comprehensive assessment of burden and difficulties associated with informal caregiving in ALS. As part of a semi-structured interview a series of standardised measures were used to assess quality of life, psychological distress and subjective burden, and in an open-ended question caregivers were asked to identify difficult aspects of their caregiving experience.
The quantitative data show that psychological distress, hours of care provided and lower quality of life, were significant predictors of caregiver burden. From the qualitative data, the caregiving difficulties were thematised around managing the practicalities of the ALS condition, the emotional and psychosocial impact; limitation and restriction, and impact on relationships.
The collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data better explores the complexity of caregiver burden in ALS. Understanding the components of burden and the difficulties experienced as a result of caring for someone with ALS allows for better supporting the caregiver, and assessing the impact of burden on the care recipient.
Few studies have examined how the allocation and consequences of grandchild care vary across different socioeconomic groups. We analyze qualitative data alongside data from The Irish Longitudinal ...Study on Ageing (TILDA), in a convergent mixed-methods approach. Regression models examined characteristics associated with grandchild care, and the relationship between grandchild care and depressive symptoms and well-being. Qualitative data shed light on processes and choices that explain patterns of grandchild care provision. Tertiary-educated grandparents provided less intensive grandchild care compared with primary educated. Qualitative data indicated that this pattern stems from early boundary-drawing among higher educated grandparents while lower socioeconomic groups were constrained and less able to say no. Intensive grandchild care was associated with more depressive symptoms and lower well-being and was moderated by participation in social activities and level of education attainment. The effect of grandchild care on well-being of grandparents depends on whether it is provided by choice or obligation.
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