Author: Robin Ray

The data

Collecting data in the intimate environment of a person's home can be daunting even for a researcher with community care experience. The first interview was a "baptism by fire" as the interview was held in a congested, smoke filled family area and was constantly interrupted by various members of the family wandering through, being introduced, trying to have their say. Yet, to capture the uniqueness of the caregiving context, all this data was important. This was how this family lived; this was part of the social network, an object of our research.

As an aside, in subsequent interviews the family caregiver controlled the flow of people, seeing the interview as her time to be important "I'm being interviewed!" Again, this was important information, providing insight in to the social organisation of these people.

Reviewing transcripts revealed an ethical dilemma arising from this scenario. We had inadvertently collected data from people who had not formally consented to the study. This was managed by gaining consent to use the data from identified peripheral caregivers (also considered participants in our study) at the next interview and discarding data from those providing casual comments.

Initially, two interviews were scheduled on one day. However, this was a mistake because the intensity of the caregiver's experience was emotionally draining especially when entering caregiving contexts for the first time. While debriefing measures such as journaling and collegial discussion had been instituted, these were not as available or not as effective as planned. Scheduling one interview per day increased the time needed for data collection, but improved the quality of the data because I was more focused on each interview. In the situation where two participants lived in the country, approximately two hours drive from the research base and within forty minutes drive of each other, time restrictions dictated that these interviews be held on the same day. To mitigate researcher burden, I planned an unrelated activity such as lunching with a friend or spending lunch time at a local tourist attraction. This created a complete change in cognitive and emotional space and refreshed me before the next interview.

The process of ecomapping was introduced during the interview explanation. Before each interview began, participants were shown a copy of a simplified ecomap and the elements of the ecomap design were explained. Participants were a bit mystified at first, but willing to participate in the process. During the first interview, I constructed the ecomap as the caregiver's story unfolded, being careful to clarify my understandings of relationships before I drew the lines. There was some hesitation among caregivers when it came to drawing lines that depicted the strength of a relationship. The importance of relationships was brought into sharp focus and I realised that I had to be careful to not stress the caregiver by my need for a value on that relationship. This could have resulted in them making a snap decision that may have under or over valued the relationship or worse still, they might have withdrawn that data.

Concern about the security of the data also had to be handled with care so that the most accurate data about the strength of the relationship could be obtained. This was overcome by drawing the circle and naming the person when the caregiver identified them, then if there was a problem, leaving relationship evaluation to a later stage in the interview. It was important to listen carefully for cues that might indicate relationship strength and then check that the correct number of lines was recorded. Consequently, ecomaps from the first round of interviews (when trust was being established), may not have truly represented all relationships.

Initially I asked direct questions to obtain ecomap data, but as my confidence increased I was able to draw data on the ecomap during the course of the interview, using the drawings as a discussion cue to gain more detailed data. Also, as four (out of eighteen) of the caregivers became more comfortable with the process, they began to draw in their own changes to their ecomap.

One challenge that did arise was the restriction on lines of relationship. To be methodologically sound, I needed to replicate ecomap construction as described by Hartman (1995), by drawing one, two or three lines to depict the strength of the relationship. Yet, occasionally caregivers wanted to increase the number of lines to describe a very strong relationship. One caregiver asked "Can I give her ten lines?" I thought about allowing this variation, but discarded the idea because I wanted to be able to compare ecomaps across the cases. To maintain the rigour of the data, I needed consistency of line definition across all ecomaps. Therefore, data pertaining to an extraordinary relationship could not be captured on the ecomap. By combining interviewing with ecomapping, the very strong relationship was captured in the interview data and not lost through the restriction of the ecomap.

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