The use of interviews

AO1: what are interviews?

They can be used to gather detailed information about different aspects of clinical psychology to gain an understanding of people’s experiences. They can be structured, semi-structured or unstructured and use a variety of questions including both open ended questions and closed ended questions.

Example interview in clinical?

Vallentine et al (2010)

Procedure of Vallentine et al (2010)?

Used semi-structured interviews to gather information from a patient group on their experiences as part of a psycho-educational group treatment programme. The patients were 42 males detained in Broadmoor high-security hospital, most of whom had received a diagnosis of SZ or a similar disorder. They were part of a programme aimed at helping them understand and cope with their illness and several measures were taken to assess the impact of this on their symptoms. The aim of the interviews was to better understand their experience, but also to gain information on how the group could be improved in the future. 

Findings of Vallentine et al (2010)?

Following the interviews, content analysis was conducted on data gathered to pick out key themes in responses. Four core themes were identified - what participants valued and why, what was helpful about the group, clinical implications and what was difficult/unhelpful about the group. Some key findings were that patients valued knowing and understanding their illness and the group sessions allowed this as well as understanding how other people’s experiences were similar. Many also reported increased confidence in dealing with their illness, which made them more positive about the future. 

Two strengths of interviews?

• Self-report validity 

• Qualitative detail 

How is self-report validity a strength?

Patients are likely to be truthful as they will want to get better. They are likely to tell a clinician about behaviours they have never shared with others before.

How is qualitative detail a strength?

Particularly for unstructured interviews, more open questioning allows patients to give detailed accounts of their disorder, allowing the clinical to gain more insight.

Two weaknesses of interviews?

• Interviewer bias

• Subjective analysis

How is interviewer bias a weakness?

As clinicians may have preconceived ideas about what symptoms of behaviours are importantly, they may miss important aspects of patient behaviour - this may make interviews unreliable as clinicians will have a different focus.

How is subjective analysis a weakness?

It is the clinician who decides on the appropriate sequence of questions if the theme for questioning and therefore may focus on symptoms they think are important rather than letting the patient determine the course of the interview.