From Focus Groups to Online Group Interviews: Adaptation to E-Research in the Face of COVID-19

Abstract

The irruption of COVID-19 and the declaration of the state of alarm due to the global pandemic stopped the development of all activities aimed at carrying out fieldwork for social research in health and in other areas. All tasks were suspended as a preventive and protective measure. In the field of research on rare diseases, a qualitative methodology adapted to the circumstances caused by the pandemic is presented. It allows field work to be carried out, moving from face-to-face focus groups to online group interviews. The use of the internet and online communication platforms have been the means to continue developing qualitative research, showing experiences and verbalizing discourses. A timely methodological adaptation that allows get the information, and to provide coverage and a voice to the affected people included in the study, with a great degree of vulnerability, who otherwise could not have been collected given the circumstances and restrictions derived from the pandemic.