logo
    Exploring multi-disciplinary team meetings on a personality-disorder ward within a forensic setting
    0
    Citation
    17
    Reference
    10
    Related Paper
    Abstract:
    Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand how patients on a low security personality disorder ward experienced multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meetings, in order to suggest improvements that would benefit the patients and clinical teams. Design/methodology/approach The design was a case study where all patients on a low secure ward that specialised in personality disorders were approached to take part in the research. The study utilised non-participant observations of the MDT meeting ( n =11), followed by individual interviews with the patients ( n =10). Findings The data were subjected to a thematic analysis and this illuminated five themes relating to the patients’ experience of the MDT meetings namely, the importance of leave applications, the formality of the meetings, the opportunity to check on progress, decision-making and the importance of communication. Practical implications The findings suggest that small changes could be made to improve the patients’ experience of the MDT meeting. These included the provision of a less formal setting, ensuring a system where leave can be requested confidentially, greater transparency about the content of progress reports, and clearer communication between the MDT and the patient after the meeting. Originality/value There is limited research that has explored patients’ experiences of MDT meetings within secure forensic settings, and the use of non-participant observations of the MDT meeting followed by semi-structured interviews meant that the researcher and the patient had a shared experience that formed the basis of the later discussion.
    Keywords:
    Formality
    Thematic Analysis
    Discipline
    Rigour
    Value (mathematics)
    Participant Observation
    Abstract Aim The aim of this paper was to discuss how to understand and undertake thematic analysis based on descriptive phenomenology. Methodological principles to guide the process of analysis are offered grounded on phenomenological philosophy. This is further discussed in relation to how scientific rigour and validity can be achieved. Design This is a discursive article on thematic analysis based on descriptive phenomenology. Results This paper takes thematic analysis based on a descriptive phenomenological tradition forward and provides a useful description on how to undertake the analysis. Ontological and epistemological foundations of descriptive phenomenology are outlined. Methodological principles are explained to guide the process of analysis, as well as help to understand validity and rigour. Researchers and students in nursing and midwifery conducting qualitative research need comprehensible and valid methods to analyse the meaning of lived experiences and organize data in meaningful ways.
    Rigour
    Thematic Analysis
    Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
    Citations (719)
    Navigating the world of qualitative thematic analysis can be challenging. This is compounded by the fact that detailed descriptions of methods are often omitted from qualitative discussions. While qualitative research methodologies are now mature, there often remains a lack of fine detail in their description both at submitted peer reviewed article level and in textbooks. As one of research's aims is to determine the relationship between knowledge and practice through the demonstration of rigour, more detailed descriptions of methods could prove useful. Rigour in quantitative research is often determined through detailed explanation allowing replication, but the ability to replicate is often not considered appropriate in qualitative research. However, a well described qualitative methodology could demonstrate and ensure the same effect. This article details the codebook development which contributed to thematic analysis of qualitative data. This analysis formed part of a mixed methods multiphase design research project, with both qualitative and quantitative inquiry and involving the convergence of data and analyses. This design consisted of three distinct phases: quantitative, qualitative and implementation phases. This article is aimed at researchers and doctoral students new to thematic analysis by describing a framework to assist their processes. The detailed description of the methods used supports attempts to utilise the thematic analysis process and to determine rigour to support the establishment of credibility. This process will assist practitioners to be confident that the knowledge and claims contained within research are transferable to their practice. The approach described within this article builds on, and enhances, current accepted models.
    Rigour
    Thematic Analysis
    Research Design
    Qualitative property
    Citations (581)
    The private sector in most countries comprises mainly of small firms. The objective of this paper is to investigate whether formality has an impact on the performance of small firms operating in Mauritius. It is very difficult to measure informality as in emerging and less developed economies, the line between formality and informality is often blurred. Different interpretations of formality are used to examine the link between firm performance and formality. This paper uses rich survey data from Mauritius on 3341 small firms consisting of both formal and informal firms to investigate the relationship between firm performance and formality. The paper finds that, broadly, formality has a positive and significant impact on the performance of small firms but the results seem to depend on which measure of performance one is looking at.
    Formality
    Thematic analysis is frequently used in social sciences, but rarely in strategy research. Arguably, poor demarcation, insufficient methodological clarity, limited explanation of analytical process, and rigour issues have contributed towards this. This paper presents a reflective account of an adapted thematic analysis process used to analyze the complex issues of strategy implementation barriers. This adapted process emerged as thematic analysis progressed and draws on the methodological developments of thematic analysis in other social sciences like psychology, rigour guidelines in the qualitative research literature and process thinking. The adapted analysis process as practised differs from the prescriptive descriptions in the existing thematic analysis literature. The issues of data familiarity, theme searching and review and thematic mapping are discussed for procedural details and rigour considerations. This paper contributes to the qualitative analysis in strategy research literature by illustrating the key elements of rigorous thematic analysis using empirical examples of strategy implementation barriers.
    Rigour
    Thematic Analysis
    CLARITY
    Thematic map
    Theme (computing)
    Citations (1)
    We prove some results on formality for families of DG algebras; in particular, we prove that formality is stable under specialization. The results are more-or-less known, but it seems that there are no published proofs.
    Formality
    This paper presents an empirical study of linguistic formality. We perform an analysis of humans’ perceptions of formality in four different genres. These findings are used to develop a statistical model for predicting formality, which is evaluated under different feature settings and genres. We apply our model to an investigation of formality in online discussion forums, and present findings consistent with theories of formality and linguistic coordination.
    Formality
    Empirical Research
    Feature (linguistics)
    Citations (135)