Skip to main content
Home / Qualitative Research in Psychology, Volume 5, Number 3

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA): A Qualitative Methodology of Choice in Healthcare Research

Buy Article:

$63.00 + tax (Refund Policy)

This paper focuses on the teaching of the qualitative method, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), to healthcare professionals (HCPs). It introduces briefly the philosophical background of IPA and how it has been used within healthcare research, and then discusses the teaching of IPA to HCPs within received educational theory. Lastly, the paper describes how IPA has been taught to students/trainees in some specific healthcare professions (clinical psychology, medicine, nursing and related disciplines). In doing this, the paper demonstrates the essential simplicity, paradoxical complexity, and methodological rigour that IPA can offer as a research tool in understanding healthcare and illness from the patient or service user perspective.

Keywords: clinical health psychology; healthcare research; interpretative phenomenological analysis; medical education; qualitative methodology; reflexivity

Document Type: Research Article

Affiliations: 1: Institute of Clinical Education, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK 2: Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

Publication date: 01 July 2008

Share Content

  • Access Key
  • Free content
  • Partial Free content
  • New content
  • Open access content
  • Partial Open access content
  • Subscribed content
  • Partial Subscribed content
  • Free trial content