CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY
4.4 Sampling technique
Purposive sampling was used in the selection of participants on the basis of their relevance to the research question (Silverman & Marvasti, 2008). This sampling method was most appropriate for this study because the aim was to select participants who could provide descriptions of their attitudes to the use of medical records in research, considering that this is an under-researched phenomenon as shown in the review of literature. Moreover, purposive sampling was used because the aim was to determine what students who use the campus clinic think about their medical records being used in research.
46 4.4.1 Inclusion Criteria
An inclusion criterion was used to determine whether a person could participate in the study, and to identify suitable participants. Eligibility criteria for inclusion were (1) University of KwaZulu-Natal students who had visited the campus clinic at least 3 times. This would be an indication that the students were regular users of the clinic such that they had an idea of what might be held in their medical records; (2) students between the age of 18 and 30; so as to allow the participants to feel free to discuss in the focus group with people of the same age group;
(3) black students: since the study was focused on finding out how black students feel about their medical records being used for research purposes (in South Africa, Indians and Coloureds are also considered black, however this study focused on black African South Africans). This is because the study was aimed at finding out if black people in South Africa would differ from the other race groups reported in previous studies from other countries.
4.4.2 Recruitment
The researcher recruited students during their visit to the UKZN PMB campus clinic. The clinic opens daily from 0800-1200hrs and reopens from 1400-1600hrs. The researcher approached students waiting to be consulted by the nurse/doctor; and briefed them about the objectives of the study and asked them if they would be willing to participate in the study. The recruitment process took 3 days. The researcher first went on Monday in the morning session and met six people who were willing to participate. In the morning the campus clinic is usually busy, so the researcher did not have any problems getting people who were willing to participate. The researcher then went for a second recruitment on Tuesday for the afternoon session. The clinic was not as busy as the Monday session. The students on this day came in one by one. The first people who came just after lunch did not meet the inclusion criteria. The researcher only had four people who were willing to participate and who met the criteria. There were two other
47 students who were also included, but due to their ill-health they did not carry on with the study.
The last recruitment took place on Wednesday morning. The researcher invited five people for one-on-one interviews. After interviewing four people, the researcher had reached data saturation – in that the participants were repeating what had been said in the focus groups and there were no new perspectives that were bring brought forward (Silverman & Marvasti, 2008).
4.4.3 Sample
The primary variable under investigation in this study was the attitudes of Black men and women towards use of medical records in health research. Thus the study sample comprised of twelve women and four men, drawn specifically from a student population at a tertiary education institution in KwaZulu-Natal. However, recommendations for further research included refining attempts to identify Black men and women’s attitudes only, so as to narrow the focus of this race group to understand if underlying factors such as history, social group, and culture influence their attitudes. Hence, it was decided to include only black students in the current study to further explore their attitudes and what influences these attitudes.
The researcher initially intended to have an even distribution of men and women in the focus group discussions. However, due to the fact that fewer males reportedly visit the campus clinic, the final sample was made up of twelve females and four males, as shown in Table 2 below.
Table 3 shows that there were four participants between the ages of 18-21, eight in the age group 22-25 and four in the age group of 26-30. Most of the participants were from the cultural group Zulu as there were eight Zulu participants, five were Xhosa and only three were from other cultural backgrounds as indicated in Table 4.
48 4.4.4 Demographics
Table 2: Gender
Table 3: Age
Age 18-21
22-25 26-30
4 8 4
Table 4: Cultural groups
Cultural Group Zulu
Xhosa Other African
8 5 3
Table 5: Colleges
College Humanities
Agriculture, Engineering and Sciences Law and Management Studies
7 3 6
Gender Males
Females
4 12
49 Table 5 indicates that there were seven students from the college of Humanities, three from the college ofAgriculture, Engineering and Sciences and six from Law and Management Studies. Of these students two were first year, four were second year, three were third year, four were fourth year and three were postgraduate students, as indicated in table 6.
Table 6: Course levels
Course Level 1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year Post graduates
2 4 3 4 3