Centre for Policy on Ageing



Using focus groups with older people
Author(s)	Monica Curran, Fiona Poland
Journal title	BASEline, no 65, November 1997
Pages	pp 29-39
Keywords	Services ; Consumer ; Participation ; Projects ; Discussions ; Research ; Methodology ; Literature reviews.
Annotation	Focus groups are group discussions organised to explore a specific set of issues. They have become popular as a way of researching opinions; and health and social care organisations have been using them for research techniques which help in providing evidence of `customer responsiveness'. The authors report on a study with Mike Nolan in the BASE (British Association for Service to the Elderly) Practice Research Unit, which was commissioned to look at ways in which Social Services Inspectorate (SSI) reports on residential homes for older people could be used by users and carers for making informed choices about homes. The article looks at options for organising focus groups: statistically representative samples; or groups which already meet, or are identifiable in some other way. The importance of preparing everyone involved is stressed. Care and sensitive management are required to ensure that the research topic is examined for both positive and negative angles. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-980709211 A
Classmark	I: WY: TMB: 3E: VBB: 3A: 3D: 64A
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.