More than words: methods to elicit talk in interviews.

In health services and primary care research, semi-structured interviews are a very common method of generating data. These interviews have a pre-determined set of topics, with questions and prompts written in advance, though there is flexibility to adjust the interview to match the direction set by the participant. Like all methods, semi-structured interviews have limits, some of which can be addressed through adaptation. In the social sciences, some interview methods include prompts beyond verbal questions to participants, called elicitation tools. Visuals (e.g. photos), videos, audio excerpts and texts can be brought into interviews to orient the discussion. Another type of interview­mobile interview­happens in places meaningful to the participants. Depending on the research question, elicitation methods can enrich semi-structured interviews. This methods brief will introduce interviewing with elicitation tools, and outline strengths of such methods.

Giving patients responsibility or fostering mutual response-ability: family physicians' constructions of effective chronic illness management.

Current visions of family medicine and models of chronic illness management integrate evidence-based medicine with collaborative, patient-centered care, despite critiques that these constructs conflict with each other. With this potential conflict in mind, we applied a critical discursive psychology methodology to present discursive patterns articulated by 13 family physicians in Ontario, Canada, regarding care of patients living with multiple chronic illnesses. Physicians constructed competing versions of the terms "effective chronic illness management" and "patient involvement." One construction integrated individual responsibility for health with primacy of "evidence," resulting in a conceptualization consistent with paternalistic care. The second constructed effective care as involving active partnership of physician and patient, implying a need to foster the ability of both practitioners and patients to respond to complex challenges as they arose. The former pattern is inconsistent with visions of family medicine and chronic illness management, whereas the latter embodies it.