A Pill for the Ill? Patients' Reports of Their Experience of the Medical Encounter in the Treatment of Depression

Online data collection strategies used in qualitative research of the health field: a scoping review

OBJECTIVE

To identify and map the online data collection strategies used in qualitative researches in the health field.

METHODS

This is a scoping review guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) from the Joanna Briggs Institute. We analyzed scientific articles, theses and dissertations from 12 databases. The analysis was made by descriptive statistics.

RESULTS

The final sample consisted of 121 researches. It was found that the number of publications increased sharply in the last five years, with predominance of studies from the United Kingdom. The highlight fields were psychology (28.1%), medicine (25.6%) and nursing (12.4%). The publications used 10 online data collection strategies: Online questionnaires, online forums, Facebook, websites, blogs, e-mail, online focus group, Twitter, chats, and YouTube.

CONCLUSIONS

Online data collection strategies are constantly expanding and increasingly used in the health area.

Remains of care: opioid substitution treatment in the post-welfare state

This article examines how the amplified role of pharmaceutical substances in addiction treatment affects the everyday realisation of care, particularly the relationship between workers and patients, in so called austere environments. Theoretically the article draws firstly on the literature that links pharmaceuticalisation to the neoliberal undoing of central public structures and institutions of care, and secondly on Anne-Marie Mol's concept of the logic of care. Based on an ethnographic analysis of the everyday life at a Finnish opioid substitution treatment clinic we show the mechanisms through which the realisation of pharmacotherapy can, in the current political climate, result in a very narrow understanding of drug problems and minimal human contact between patients and professionals. Our analysis manifests an important shift in the logic of addiction treatment and health-care policy more broadly; namely, a growing tendency to emphasise the need for patients to care for themselves and make good choices with limited help from formal care institutions and professionals. We call this new ethos the logic of austerity.