appropriate sample?

appropriate sample?

by Deleted user -
Number of replies: 9

Rose et al. did a qualitative study of both mental health care service users and providers to explore barriers and facilitators of disclosure of domestic violence. I hope it is ok that I will focus only on the first question of the checklist by Kuper et al.

Was the sample used in the study appropriate to its research question?

Only 18 service users who had experienced domestic violence were included. Looking at Rose et al.’s results I think the number of participants seemed appropriate, I just do not understand why they included five participants who were perpetrators. Please correct me if I got this wrong, but I thought they wanted to explore the barriers of disclosure of people who suffered from violence and not the views of violators!

Further, does a sample of 18 people really give an appropriate diversity in age ethnicity, diagnosis and experience in domestic violence? Only 2 of the 18 participants were male - there is definitely not an appropriate diversity in sex and gender!I found it surprising though that they included 10 men and 10 women in the mental health professionals group. Why didn’t they do so in the service user group?

In reply to Deleted user

Re: appropriate sample?

by Sandeep Suryadevara Rao -

It may have been that not enough men came forward to be included in the study so they could not get equal numbers. Also, in the introduction they do mention that the prevalence of domestic abuse is greater in females than in males and that with male victims the cases are 'less severe'. I imagine therefore that they were more keen to investigate issues with regard to female sufferers.

Another point on sampling is that 2 of the 3 methods of recruitment involved posting adverts and putting up posters. In my experience only certain types of people respond to such adverts.

Given that the title was to explore barriers and facilitators in 'mental health service users' they could have certainly included the opinions of people who had not previously disclosed domestic abuse. Mental health service users in general are asked to disclose massive amounts of personal information, and they could hypothesise as to barriers/facilitators of disclosure of domestic abuse. Not to mention that some service users would want to take part in the study because they had suffered abuse which they had not yet disclosed. And this patient group are the perfect group to interview

In reply to Deleted user

Re: appropriate sample?

by Deleted user -

After reading the Rose et al. paper, I thought the same with you. Why did they include five participants who were perpetrators? But then I thought, they did it because they wanted to note, and in my opinion, it is worth noting that violence has as a result violence. I do not know if I thought correct or not, so any other ideas are welcome.

About the sample, I read the results and they mentioned that "saturation of themes was obtained after recruitment of 18 service users and 20 mental healthcare professionals". So in a qualitative study if saturation of themes has been reached, then there is no need for more intrviewees.

In reply to Deleted user

Re: appropriate sample?

by Sara Shaw -

Good point about saturation' Marina. And how qualitatve studies can sometimes be iterative, stopping sampling as/when no more new themes are emerging from analysis.

This is an interesting discussion about sampling too and who to include/exclude in the study. You might like to look at a simialar thread in seminar group 2 - http://qmplus.qmul.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=3651 - where Moira has posted a useful link to a paper by Sarah Curtis. outlining six criteria:

1. The sampling strategy should be relevant to the conceptual framework and the research questions addressed by the research.

2. The sample should be likely to generate rich information on the type of phenomena which need to be studied.

3. Thes sample should enhance the 'generalizability' of the findings.

4. the sample should produce believable descriptions/explanations.

5. Is the sample strategy ethical?

6. Is the sampling plan feasible?

How well do you think these have been addressed in the paper by Rose et al? 

In reply to Deleted user

Re: appropriate sample?

by Yasin Fatine -

Hey Sebastian, I know you're a strong advocate for quantitative research, like me, but with qualititave research, I don't think equal numbers of males and females really matter as long as there has been a 'saturation of themes' as everyone has mentioned.

However something I am not comfortable with, and I know the aim of this paper is to look at mental health service users specifically, but could the patient's own mental illness experience have an influence on the type of answers given? Yes, they have listed the categories of mental illness the patients fall under, and excluded patients who were judged by clinicians to be too ill to participate, but I still think that with this small sample, results could be 'skewed' one way or another, especially if the research is qualititave. So Sara, with regard to the questions you posted, I'm not sure if question 4 is answered well.

In reply to Yasin Fatine

Re: appropriate sample?

by Deleted user -

 i think the inclusion of the perpetrators would not have been neccessary to answer the research question and there was no part of the result that mentioned the outcome of this inclusion,i also agree with yasin that more sample would be a better idea.

In reply to Yasin Fatine

Re: appropriate sample?

by Samuel Dafydd Rigby -

But when they say saturation of themes, is that repetition of themes from the female cohort which, owing to larger proportion of female, appear to represent both genders, when in fact it is not the case?

In reply to Deleted user

Re: appropriate sample?

by Deleted user -

Having only two male participatents is definitely not a desireable goal, but it is understandable. As Sandy has already said, far more women are victims of domestic violence than men. The US National Violence Against Women survey stated in 2000 that three times as many women were victims of domestic violence as were men. Furthermore, as with many other topics, men do not tend to come straight forward with their issues. After all, men being hit by women, the strong sex being overpowered by the weak sex; the thought alone still seems to be outragious in our society.

In reply to Deleted user

Re: appropriate sample?

by Ahmed Al-Nowfal -

What struck me with the sampling method was the fact it was advertisement. Wouldn’t that lead to only gaining a sample with certain characteristic, ie those who feel empowered enough to respond, who might have different fears or concerns to those who will not respond. And does the financial incentive (£20 ) effect the type of sample collected.

In reply to Ahmed Al-Nowfal

Re: appropriate sample?

by Deleted user -

That is definitely a very valid point. It is difficult to get the information about a study out to the public and potential study participants. Every day you can see adverts in trains, buses or newspapers, because those are the places where you can easily reach a lot of people. On the other hand, it might create some kind of bias for your study. I don't know of any better way to get people to enrol in a study though. So bearing the potential for a bias in mind, one should be able to proceed with the study accordingly.