interventions used when caring for patients with acute mania. Each
nurse was also asked to formulate his or her top five list for each of the
above (i.e., patient problems, desired patient outcomes, nursing interventions).
The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim.
Focus Group Meetings
Following our analyses of interviewdata three focus group meetings
were held to deepen our understanding of what was found. The nurses
who participated in the interviews were invited to participate in the
focus group meetings, which were held in September–October 2013.
Prior to the start of each focus groupmeeting, the rules and requirements
for maintaining anonymitywere explained alongwith the aimof
the focus group meeting. The participants were explicitly invited to
share all of their thoughts on a particular topic. The focus groupmeetings
were led by the first author (TD) while the third author (PG) wrote the
statements made per item on a flip chart for all to see.
At the start of each focus group meeting, the participants were given
the overall top five list of patient problems, desired patient outcomes,
and nursing interventions obtained from the analysis of the individual interview
data. The participants were asked to articulate the signals and
symptoms of specific patient problems; state which indicators were
used to evaluate the attainment of desired patient outcomes; and which
activities were performed as part of specific nursing interventions.
During the focus group meetings, the authors regularly checked to
see that they had understood the information provided by the participants
correctly. They also checked that the discussion of each item
was judged to be complete by the group. All of the focus group meetings
were audio recorded.