Difference between revisions of "Focus group"

Revision as of 15:41, 1 March 2007

A focus group is a qualitative research technique where the researcher or moderator conducts a group interview to address a specific issue (1). The size of the group is variable, but in general, five to ten participants is considered optimal. The duration of the interview can be an hour or two.

Focus groups originated in response to a need in the mid-twentieth century by advertising companies to determine why (or why not) consumers liked (or disliked) various products and services (2). It was useful to bring consumers together to discuss these products and services, as the interactive nature of the interview allows the researcher to focus as necessary on areas of interest. Once there value was realized, focus groups were no longer limited to marketing, and soon became a cross-discipline research methodology, although their use in academics has been adopted more slowly.

Focus groups are useful for several reasons (1,2,3). First, a group of interviewees can be brought together rapidly and cost-effectively. This is particular important for a health informatics project as continual user feedback during development and deployment is key to a projects success. Second, this informatics project impacts all users in the organization, and therefore having a common forum will help to encourage discussion and sharing of concerns on how the project affects the organization.

As with other research techniques, there are drawbacks (2,3). Most notably, the researcher (or moderator) sacrifices the control of a one-on-one interview for the flexibility of a group interview. This can lead to discussion of extraneous topics, but an effective researcher will be able to quickly refocus the discussion. Another drawback is some interviewees may feel inhibited about bringing up topics where their opinion differs drastically from the group. Combining a group interview with one-on-one interviews can circumvent this drawback.

There are abundant examples of the use of focus groups for informatics projects in published literature. Some select examples include:

• A study where a focus group of nurses was assembled to gather feedback on an “assessment” that was introduced to an EHR (4).
• A study where a group of clinicians was brought together to address a recently implemented EHR and the issue that a “useful clinical overview” was not easily obtained from the system (5).
• A study designed to ascertain the “social and organizational requirements for a decision support system (DSS)” (6).
• A study of clinicians and patients to determine an appropriate alerting technique to track changes in medical knowledge (7).

1. Leedy et al. Practical Research. p146.

2. http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/orp/orp1.htm

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_group

4. Gunningberg L, Fogelberg-Dahm M, Ehrenberg A. Nurses' perceptions of feed-back from the electronic patient record for the quality on pressure ulcer care. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2006;122:850.

5. Neve K, Kragh Iversen R, Andersen CK. Is it possible for nurses and doctors to form a useful clinical overview of an EHR? Stud Health Technol Inform. 2006;122:314-9.

6. Dahlstrom O, Thyberg I, Hass U, Skogh T, Timpka T. Designing a decision support system for existing clinical organizational structures: considerations from a rheumatology clinic. J Med Syst. 2006 Oct;30(5):325-31.

7. Hinze A, Buchanan G, Jung D, Adams A. HDLalert - a healthcare DL alerting system: from user needs to implementation. Health Informatics J. 2006 Jun;12(2):121-35.