Methodology
Each collection of stories on this website draws from a series of in-depth interviews with Canadians about their experience of a particular illness or health-related issue. We call each collection of stories a “module”, and carry out an original research study to make each one.
A lot of work goes into making a module. First, we choose a topic and invite a team of experts to guide us throughout the project. Our team learns all it can about the topic, and we invite regular people from across the country to share their stories in video interviews.
Usually, we will interview people in their homes, but may go elsewhere if they prefer. The interviews are “semi-structured”, which means we don’t ask too many questions. Instead, we encourage people to tell their stories in a way that they feel comfortable.
For a given module, we usually interview between 35-50 people—enough to capture the diversity of experiences and views from people across Canada. We analyze the interviews and summarize the full range of perspectives that we heard. Then, we choose the interview clips, and share these on the website.
Our methods are modeled on the award-winning website, Healthtalk. Healthtalk is developed by researchers at the University of Oxford, and their methods are considered the “gold standard” for research into patient and caregiver experiences.
To read more about our research methods, please download our Methodology article. In the article, you can read about the team’s expertise, how we recruit patients, conduct interviews, select video clips, and develop all the information you find on Healthexperiences.ca.