Response to Tricas-Sauras’ commentary

Abstract

In her commentary, Tricas-Sauras (in press) makes me interesting points on the topic of diagnosis and ting disorders. However, it should be noted that the key of our paper (Tierney et al., in press), which she uses as platform for this debate, was to give a voice to mothers ho self-identified as having difficulties related to food take, weight and their control, rather than being about nical labels. The research stemmed from discussions ith local midwives, which suggested that women with me form of eating problem (regardless of how it was edically categorised) were underserved by healthcare actitioners due to a lack of understanding of their needs d expectations. These mothers were of particular terest because of a heightened risk of low mood and anges to the body that occur during pregnancy. We ped that findings would assist with improving care, ven the dearth of evidence currently available to support nicians working with them. Tricas-Sauras (in press) refers to the secretive and hidden ture of eating disorders, which can make recruitment fficult. This was something we encountered whilst nducting the study, as discussed in detail in a second ticle (Tierney et al., 2010). A UK-based eating disorders sociation was used as a vehicle for recruitment after few rticipants were located from a local midwifery service. is tactic has been adopted in related research (e.g. Fox al., 2011; Ioannou and Fox, 2009; Tierney and Fox, 2010). Continuing with the sample, Tricas-Sauras (in press) comments that it is not clear why we included eight interviewees. In our methods section, we state that this was the number fulfilling the inclusion criteria agreeing to take part. We do identify this small sample as a potential limitation, although it should be borne in mind that the purpose of qualitative research is to explore experiences and to gain an understanding of social processes (Sim and Wright, 2000). It is our belief that data collected were sufficient to provide a meaningful insight into the phenomenon being studied. Women involved had a right to tell their story and they generated a wealth of valuable information during interviews. Two screening questionnaires were used to ensure those taking part would be able to shed light on the topic. Our employment of face-to-face and telephone interviews is alluded to in Tricas-Sauras’ (in press) commentary. This mixture of data collection techniques was for pragmatic reasons in the main; using the internet to recruit participants meant they were more geographically dispersed than considered when planning the study and we had insufficient funding to travel great distances. However, we do not feel that the quality of data was limited by telephone interviews. In fact, some women taking part expressed a preference for this approach because it was more anonymous. Tricas-Sauras (in press) mentions the typology we included in our paper, which divided participants into three sets based on what they said during interviews. We did not include this in the results section because it was a tentative idea, based on low numbers, but placed it in the discussion as a succinct way of thinking about the data and to inspire areas for future investigation. In contrast, the four themes outlined in our results section emerged through systematic assessment of interview transcripts, using framework analysis and several group discussions among our team. As with all qualitative research, findings presented in our paper represent one interpretation of the data. Nevertheless, we believe they provide a useful insight R T I C L E I N F O