Interviewing vulnerable old people: Ethical and methodological implications of imagining our subjects

Journal/Book: J Aging Stud. 1999; 13: 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010, USA. Elsevier Science Inc. 403-417.

Abstract: If is sometimes argued that interview, research with vulnerable social groups, such as frail, lonely, older people, has distinctive ethical and methodological requirements. The conventional one-off professional interview is seen to be both inadequate as a method of data collection and inimical to the interests of research subjects. While ideologically persuasive, such a view is not derived from systematic analysis of actual interviews. In this article I describe a research project on social isolation in which the conceptualization of elderly interviews as ''vulnerable subjects'' had a number of critical but intended impacts on the course and outcomes of the research. I offer an empirically grounded analysis of the interview situation that suggests an alternative reading of the relationship between social representations of aging persons and the methods we use to study them.

Note: Article Russell C, Univ Sydney, Sch Beh & Community Hlth Sci, Fac Hlth Sci, POB 170, Lidcombe, NSW 1825, AUSTRALIA

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