Interactive Session on ‘focus group discussion’ for health professionals in India: a mixed-methods evaluation

Objective: To design an interactive session on Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and evaluate it from the participants’ view point. Methodology: Study setting was a five-day long workshop on ‘Qualitative Research Methods’ for health professionals, with 30 health professionals from 8 different states of India having public health, clinical and nursing backgrounds as participants. A mixed-methods design of triangulation type was utilized, where both quantitative (Likert type feedback and retro-pre survey) and qualitative (data emerging during group work) data was simultaneously collected and analyzed. After a brief sensitization on FGD guidelines, 30 participants were divided into two equal groups. Participants were given a group work on planning and running an FGD. We used ‘Fishbowl’ seating arrangement to take them through the FGD process and experience the role of facilitator and the role of participant. It was followed by a debrief. Content analysis of qualitative data was done and consensus scores were calculated from the feedback responses. Results and conclusion: The session on FGD was well received (weighted mean-1.4; consensus81.5%). The post-session mean score for their perceived ability to facilitate FGD increased to 4.8 from a pre-session score of 2.1 (p=0.009). The session design helped facilitate a discussion on challenges in running an FGD, such as the influence of facilitator’s anxiety, mutual coordination, note-taking and seeking information from the participants and its potential effect on data quality and validity.