Content Analysis

This method of research can help you to gather the experiences of people with dementia, enabling them to influence change in services and products.

This is about analysing the text of documents such as letters, patient experience comments and complaints, and website comments. 

Pros and Cons

Number of people: this method can be used to consider thousands, or millions of records at a time.

Useful for

  • This could be to collect quantitative data - for example 'how many of our patient information publications use the phrase 'suffering with dementia', rather than more positive language
  • This could be to collect qualitative data - for example looking for themes or major ideas in documents.

Disadvantages

  • The computer cannot determine what the word meant to the person who used it.
  • Dementia may change the way people use words and language - perhaps noting down a word other than the one they intended, or using a word and attributing a different meaning to it than would generally be expected.
  • there is potential for error. For example, if records were searched for particular words to learn whether service users had a positive experience and outcomes, the word 'benefits' might be wrongly understood to relate to this, whereas it might be that a top need for help service users had was to get help about their welfare benefits entitlements.

Cost: this can be very expensive as it may require using particular technology or buying in experts as consultants.  

Time: this may take time to set up

How it can be done

  • Key Word in Context ("KWIC") is usually done by computer.

    For example a web-based search for the word "rude" in comments patients have made in patient experience surveys might reveal that it occurs significantly more about receptionists, than about doctors (real example - not dementia-specific). 

Real-life example featured in this resource

Mapping the Dementia Diagnosis Journey to improve self-guided support