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Background: People who have communication difficulties may benefit from using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Understanding and measuring outcomes from the use of AAC is an important part of evaluating the impact of devices and services. Outcome measurement needs to reflect the changing nature of the impact of using AAC on an individual's ability to participate in activities of daily life. There is a limited understanding of the concepts that should inform the evaluation of outcomes from AAC device provision, nor how people's expectations from AAC may change over time. Aims: To inform the development of a patient‐reported outcome measure for AAC by understanding more about people's expectations from AAC and how these change over time. Methods & Procedures: A longitudinal qualitative research study was designed and carried out with seven participants over a period of 2 years. Participants were recruited from a regional specialist assessment service for AAC in the south‐west of the UK. Four semi‐structured interviews were carried out: (1) before assessment for AAC, (2) after assessment, (3) directly after provision of an AAC device and (4) between 6 and 12 months after provision. An original analytic method was used in this study that built on the principles of longitudinal interpretative phenomenology analysis, applied with a dialogic theoretical lens. This approach enabled the inclusion of a range of multimodal and embodied data collected to this study and allowed the research team to draw out salient themes across the cohort group while attending to the influence of time and context on experience. Outcomes & Results: The results confirm and extend the three core concepts that were used to guide analysis: changes; contexts; future possibilities. The contextual and temporal influences on outcomes attainable from AAC for this cohort were also identified and illustrated through cross‐case comparison. Deeper, analytic, and conceptual engagement with theory, which was then applied to analysis of the data, provided methodological rigour in the study. The results enhance our understanding of people's hopes and expectations from AAC and how these change over time. Conclusions & Implications: This qualitative longitudinal research study provides new insights into the journeys of people who experience communication disability, and the shifting nature of their sense of identity as they engage with, and learn from using, AAC. The study is significant as it attends to the dynamic nature of experience and how contextual and experiential factors influence people's hopes and expectations from AAC. The paper presents an original application of longitudinal qualitative research methodology with people who use AAC which can be further applied and tested in the field of communication disability research. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject: We did not know the impact that time has on the concepts that have been identified to represent important outcomes from AAC. The existing concepts used to define outcomes from AAC were not adequately conceptualized to develop a patient‐reported outcome measure. This study sought to extend our knowledge about outcomes from AAC. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge: This study adds to the methodological toolkit available for qualitative inquiry in the field of communication disability research by presenting a longitudinal qualitative research methodology. It adds depth to our understanding of the concepts that underpin outcomes from AAC and highlights the dynamic nature of contexts and how this influences desired outcomes. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: This longitudinal qualitative research study provides a broader perspective on the experience of getting AAC. It will enable clinicians to better navigate the contextual and transitionary factors that influence people's experience of acquiring AAC devices. The enhanced concepts described will also support clinical conversations that consider the wider facets of communication and what AAC can add to existing communicative tool kits beyond getting a message across. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual revictimization can have a negative impact on many facets of women's wellbeing, yet limited evidence exists regarding specific interventions that support healing and the reduction of further revictimization. This paper will explore regional and rural women's experience of a group-based empowerment program, the Shark Cage program, in Victoria, Australia. The "Shark Cage" program aims to address revictimization by empowering women and girls to build personal boundaries and assertiveness within the context of gender equality and human rights. Data were collected via participant observations across the 8-week program, in combination with semi-structured interviews with participants (N = 11) pre and post intervention. All participants had access to therapeutic support outside of the program. Findings indicate that the program fostered connections among women with shared experiences of sexual revictimization, reducing feelings of isolation. Participants detailed the benefit of developing and practicing skills in reducing revictimization, such as assertiveness and boundary setting. Program learning and recovery was embedded within a network of embodied emotions, social connections, cultural norms and place-based relations that influenced how participants recovery could be understood, processed and addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) play a central role in clinical research and patient care resulting in a plethora of standardized PROMs to measure a range of constructs, including disease symptoms, health-related quality of life, and health status (Meadows/Reaney) used in a range of settings, including the nursing environment. However, the use of PROMs in drug development and their use in healthcare evaluation do not easily marry together. In drug development, standardization of measurement is key to the interpretation of the formation at a population level with minimal biases. However, in health care, the individual patient perspective, priority, and needs should be taken into account whereas, in the clinical encounter, one has to also deal with what is particular and unique. The purpose of this paper is to describe the characteristics of the phenomenological method as a means within a mixed-method framework, to supplement participants' patient-reported outcome numeric scores with a more in-depth commentary on the essence of the lived health experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents research that explored the ways that systemic and family therapists might approach the support of families living with dementia. A constructivist grounded theory methodology was used to interpret interviews with four systemic family therapists working in the United Kingdom. All participants had professional and/or lived experience of dementia. Transcript analysis and theoretical sampling led to the development of five categories, each related to different aspects of considering systemic therapy in a dementia context. These categories were further developed into a 'systemically informed dementia orienteering' conceptual framework, which is presented in this paper as a learning resource. Findings are related to existing literature, and recommendations for future research are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and applies a methodology of qualitative inquiry that equips researchers to capture how social actors produce and contest accepted forms of knowledge at the margins of mainstream globalizing discourses in times of crisis. Standing at the intersection between conceptual and empirical research, our methodology builds on the common epistemological premises of 'narrative', as stories constructed and enacted in social life, and 'practice', as tasks and projects composed by 'doings' and 'sayings'. Overcoming the dualism between 'action' and 'discourse' in traditional social theory, this methodology integrates narrative theory and practice theory into a joint framework for fieldwork and interviews. The use of the narrative-practice methodology in ethnographic case studies – such as interpreters' experience of the COVID-19 pandemic in Qatar – allows researchers to gain analytical granularity on participants' storied practice and practiced stories of the crisis, to harness 'peripheral' knowledge and refashion public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This article aims to explore the complex intersection of transgender people’s identities within Pakistan’s criminal justice system; a nation in South Asia with a vast population of around 220 million. Aim: This paper aims to explore the myriad challenges faced by transgender individuals when they navigate the realms of justice, encompassing encounters with community people, law enforcement, experiences within the prison system, interactions with prosecution, and engagements with the judicial process in Pakistan. Method: Employing a qualitative research methodology, this study draws on one set of semi structured interviews with ten members of the Khawaja Sara communities, representing transgender individuals, within their residential spaces in Peshawar. Findings: Through the lens of an intersectional framework, the study’s findings demonstrate the fragile nature of the criminal justice system in Pakistan as it fails to provide justice to transgender people and to safeguard their lives in Peshawar. Conclusion: The study demonstrates entrenched issues like transphobia, cisgenderism, and cisnormativity in the criminal justice system of Pakistan, contributing to suboptimal case handling and the exacerbation of hate crimes against the Khawaja Sara communities in Peshawar. Consequently, a considerable number of cases involving transgender individuals either go unreported or witness the voluntary withdrawal of First Information Reports (FIRs), perpetuating a cycle of impunity and significantly compromising the pursuit of justice in Peshawar, Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Aging populations and an increasing number of immigrants in recent years have led to numerous changes in intergenerational relationships. Although many studies have investigated the impact of providing care to a parent with dementia, little is known about the impact of caregiving activities provided from a distance, such as in the case of immigration, and over a long period of time to a person with dementia. Our understanding of how transnational caregiving for a person with dementia affects relationships is also limited. Using the Intergenerational Solidarity Theory as a theoretical framework, this paper examines the experiences of adult children and immigrant caregivers of a parent with dementia living in Poland. Methods A qualitative, semistructured interview was conducted with 37 caregivers living in the United States while providing transnational care to a parent with Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. The data analysis was based on the thematic analysis strategy. Results Four themes were identified: (1) filial obligations and solidarity, (2) caregivers' contradictory emotions regarding transnational care, (3) financial and emotional exhaustion, and (4) challenges of nursing home dilemmas. Discussion Transnational caregivers represent a unique group who face distinctive challenges related to competing demands and limited resources. This study contributes to a better understanding of their experiences whereas the findings highlight the importance of addressing the mental and physical well-being of immigrant caregivers of individuals with dementia and have important implications for health care professionals and immigration policies. Implications for future research were also identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There exist ongoing calls among social work scholars and practitioners to cultivate applied knowledge of critical and emancipatory practice. In this paper, I explore the utility of text-based vignettes as instruments that can be used to elicit insight from marginalized service users on critical social work practice. To do this work, I draw on data from interviews with 20 transgender and gender diverse (TGD) social service users, along with 10 social workers, whose responses to a text-based vignette were originally used to build an understanding of the constituents of equitable social work practice with TGD people. Incorporating critical pragmatism as a conceptual framework and constructivist grounded theory as a methodological orientation, I analyze data from this study as an exemplar that substantiates the promise of using text-based vignettes in qualitative social work research to generate knowledge of critical social work practice. Specifically, I demonstrate how text-based vignettes in this study (1) contextualized the meaning, significance, and impact of oppression for service users, (2) built insight on practice that reflects solidarity and allyship, and (3) identified opportunities for social workers' reflexive use of professional power to effect change. Accounting for the tensions between empiricism and critical praxis in social work, I consider the promise of incorporating text-based vignettes to develop empirical social work literature that is rooted in the voices of marginalized service users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]