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Using Focus Groups to Elicit Views Across Disciplines and National Experiences with Intellectual Disabilities
Author(s) -
McCallion Philip,
McCarron Mary
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of policy and practice in intellectual disabilities
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.592
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1741-1130
pISSN - 1741-1122
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-1130.2004.04015.x
Subject(s) - intellectual disability , promotion (chess) , focus group , public relations , psychology , public health , medical education , gerontology , political science , medicine , sociology , nursing , psychiatry , politics , anthropology , law
Abstract This article reports upon the usefulness of a focus group strategy to develop a consensus on key health and aging research recommendations for persons with intellectual disabilities (ID). This strategy was employed at an opportunistic situation, a consensus meeting (the Tampa Scientific Conference on Intellectual Disability, Aging and Health ) which involved 75 diverse background participants from the United States and other countries who came together to evolve recommendations for aging health policy. The meeting's participants included basic and applied researchers with a range of professional interests (physicians, psychologists, sociologists, social workers, and nurses), public policy workers and administrators, and family members and persons with ID. A working group process, a focus group strategy, was used successfully to develop recommendations in the areas of medical and epidemiological issues, syndrome‐specific concerns, and the promotion of healthy aging. The approach used was found to be particularly helpful in reconciling diverse researcher and consumer perspectives, considering both basic and applied research issues, and yielding both national‐specific and internationally relevant recommendations.