A critical evaluation of the use of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) in health psychology

With the burgeoning use of qualitative methods in health research, criteria for judging their value become increasingly necessary. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is a distinctive approach to conducting qualitative research being used with increasing frequency in published studies. A systematic literature review was undertaken to identify published papers in the area of health psychology employing IPA. A total of 52 articles are reviewed here in terms of the following: methods of data collection, sampling, assessing wider applicability of research and adherence to the theoretical foundations and procedures of IPA. IPA seems applicable and useful in a wide variety of research topics. The lack of attention sometimes afforded to the interpretative facet of the approach is discussed

A critical evaluation of the use of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) in health psychology

With the burgeoning use of qualitative methods in health research, criteria for judging their value become increasingly necessary. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is a distinctive approach to conducting qualitative research being used with increasing frequency in published studies. A systematic literature review was undertaken to identify published papers in the area of health psychology employing IPA. A total of 52 articles are reviewed here in terms of the following: methods of data collection, sampling, assessing wider applicability of research and adherence to the theoretical foundations and procedures of IPA. IPA seems applicable and useful in a wide variety of research topics. The lack of attention sometimes afforded to the interpretative facet of the approach is discussed

Attributions, distress and behavioural responses in the significant others of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

To test an attribution-emotion model of reactions to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME), 30 significant others of 30 adult patients with CFS/ME were administered a semi-structured interview about their beliefs regarding the patient’s illness, and completed questionnaire measures of distress and behavioural responses to the patient. Spontaneous causal explanations (attributions) for illness events, symptom exacerbation and negative patient mood were extracted and coded. Significant other distress and negative behavioural responses towards the CFS/ME patient were associated with attributing illness events to causes personal and internal to the patient. Our findings may inform future family–based interventions for CFS/ME

How Academic Dress Is Mobilized in Degree Ceremonies and to What Effect

Academic dress is perceived by many to be fixed and unchanging, yet this study illuminated how rich, diverse, dynamic and changeable it can be. Using a socio-material approach called actor-network theory meant that the focus of attention in this study was on how academic dress was mobilized in relation to degree ceremonies and to what effect. By focusing on academic dress in this particular way, the aim was to highlight how academic dress contributed to making and shaping degree ceremonies. This study found that academic dress generated similar and different effects across degree ceremonies held at different institutions, and concluded that using actor-network theory provided an opportunity to look closely at how similar and different cultural values, assumptions and expectations, were constructed in relation to academic dress

Action, arousal and subjective time

Saccadic chronostasis refers to the subjective temporal lengthening of the first visual stimulus perceived after an eye movement. It has been quantified using a duration discrimination task. Most models of human duration discrimination hypothesise an internal clock. These models could explain chronostasis as a transient increase in internal clock speed due to arousal following a saccade, leading to temporal overestimation. Two experiments are described which addressed this hypothesis by parametrically varying the duration of the stimuli that are being judged. Changes in internal clock speed predict chronostasis effects proportional to stimulus duration. No evidence for proportionality was found. Two further experiments assessed the appropriateness of the control conditions employed. Results indicated that the chronostasis effect is constant across a wide range of stimulus durations and does not reflect the pattern of visual stimulation experienced during a saccade, suggesting that arousal is not critical. Instead, alternative processes, such as one affecting the onset of timing (i.e., the time of internal clock switch closure) are implicated. Further research is required to select between these alternatives

Can we use verbal estimation to dissect the internal clock? Differentiating the effects of pacemaker rate, switch latencies, and judgment processes

Behavioural timing is frequently assumed to be based on the accumulation of pulses from a pacemaker. In humans, verbal estimation is often used to determine whether the effect of factors which influence subjective time become more pronounced at longer durations - that is, if they affect the slope of the judgment function, consistent with a change in the rate of the pacemaker. Here, participants judged blank intervals marked by two squares which either did or did not differ in size. In Experiment 1, a small change in marker size produced shorter temporal judgments than a large change. This effect was independent of objective duration and indicates that the slope changes seen in previous work are not an inevitable artefact of the verbal estimation procedure. However, Experiments 2 and 3 included conditions where the markers did not change size and established (a) that the effect of marker size depends on the other stimuli presented during the experiment, and (b) that slope effects occur even when they cannot possibly be due to a change in the rate of the pacemaker. Taken together, these results urge some caution in the use of verbal estimation as a methodology for deconstructing the putative internal clock

Alterations in intrinsic heart rate in endotoxemia

After much early debate, it is now well recognized that the origin of the heart beat is myogenic, or intrinsic, to the heart. It has been felt that the intrinsic heart rate (IHR) is constant and that the observed heart rate is controlled by tonal alterations in the activity of the autonomic nervous system in response to various stimuli. Some investigators have recognized, however, that the intrinsic heart rate (IHR) can be altered in certain conditions. Sepsis, or the host response to bacterial infection, is recognized as a stress to the host that results in decreased myocardial contractility and tachycardia. Some previous work has suggested that this tachycardia may exist outside the tonal regulation of the autonomic nervous system, raising the possibility of an elevation of the IHR. Utilizing an E. coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) endotoxin model of sepsis in the rat, this work demonstrates an elevation of the IHR in sepsis. The experimental evidence further suggests that the beta-adrenoceptor participates in the induction of the elevation in IHR early in the septic process. By sixteen hours after LPS administration the beta-adrenoceptor is, however, no longer required for the ongoing elevation of IHR. It is also demonstrated that the elevation in IHR is more prolonged than the contractile dysfunction induced by LPS