The Research Unit for General Practice and Section of General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Primary Health Care Research Unit, Region Zealand, Denmark.
Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being. 2023 Dec;18(1):2233253. doi: 10.1080/17482631.2023.2233253.
It can be challenging to research aspects of people's health behaviour, attitudes, and emotions due to the sensitive nature of these topics. We aimed to develop a novel methodology for discussing sensitive health topics, and explore the effectiveness in focus groups using prostate cancer and screening as an example.
We developed a fictitious case and employed it as a projective technique in focus groups on prostate cancer and screening. The participants were men and their partners who lived in Denmark.
The technique encouraged emotional and cognitive openness in focus group discussions about the risk of prostate cancer, the benefits and harms of screening, and decision-making about screening. It appeared that using the fictitious case allowed the participants to personally distance themselves from the topic, project emotions onto the case, and thereby openly talk about their emotions.
This article presents a methodological contribution to communication about sensitive topics in focus groups, using prostate cancer screening as an example. Further refinement of the methodology is needed to enable participants to transfer improvements in knowledge to their own decision about screening.
由于这些主题的敏感性，研究人们的健康行为、态度和情绪方面可能具有挑战性。我们旨在开发一种新的方法来讨论敏感的健康话题，并以前列腺癌和筛查为例探讨其在焦点小组中的效果。
我们开发了一个虚构的案例，并将其作为前列腺癌和筛查焦点小组的一种投射技术。参与者是居住在丹麦的男性及其伴侣。
该技术鼓励了关于前列腺癌风险、筛查的益处和危害以及筛查决策的焦点小组讨论中的情感和认知开放性。使用虚构案例似乎使参与者能够从个人上与主题保持距离，将情感投射到案例上，并因此能够公开谈论自己的情感。
本文以前列腺癌筛查为例，为焦点小组中讨论敏感话题的方法做出了贡献。需要进一步完善该方法，使参与者能够将知识的提高转化为他们自己对筛查的决策。
