Focus group interviews

Our understanding of a focus group is consistent with Barbour [29, p. 2], who noted that “any group discussion may be called a focus group as long as the researcher is actively encouraging of, and attentive to, the group interaction […] ensuring that participants talk amongst themselves rather than interacting only with the researcher”. In our study, we were interested in how understandings and attributions were constructed and negotiated among the healthcare professionals. Hence, focus groups were a suitable approach.

Focus groups were conducted in meeting rooms at local nursing homes or health centres, and were digitally recorded. Two researchers were present during the interviews; one was responsible for asking questions and initiating group discussions, and the other focused on observing and taking notes regarding group interactions and identifying new leads as they appeared in conversations.

A broad topic guide was used in the interviews. It included topics such as descriptions of the districts, descriptions of the service users (e.g. geographic distribution, age span, networks), the establishment of contact between the service users and the healthcare services, experiences of offered services being rejected, experiences of requested services not being available, collaboration with families and other informal caregivers, and the distribution of responsibilities between informal caregivers and the healthcare services. Immediately after the interviews, researchers discussed the interviews and wrote field notes; interviews were then transcribed.