Oldal 156 [156]
3. ASSESSING THE EXPERIENCE OF USING SYNTHETIC CANNABINOIDS... m 45
Name Age | Sex | Marital status Highest educational | Duration of SC | Time spent
voces feces fete ee e e e e e ee ee een attainment |. usage (year) | in treatment
Ricsi 27 | Male Single High school 2 1 year
en Atty le sO. ale ne “elementary school le 3 nee: a
rn ER le 5 le Sale lerne: High schoo rl z le oe
— Levente | 22 | Male| Single | Elementaryschool | 6 | 1 month
© Jerob | 20 | Male| Single | Elementaryschool | 25 | 3 months
er a ve te “Hemontary sehocl la 5 le: a
1. Table Participants’ sociodemographic characteristics.
(Participants’ names have been changed to protect their identities)
Data collection
For this study we conducted semi-structured interviews by using open-ended
questions. Ihe interviews lasted 45-60 min. In IPA studies, participants are
perceived as experts on the subject, and therefore the interview schedule
should allow ample opportunity for them to tell their stories, and should be
flexible enough to go into novel areas and produce richer data (Smith & Os¬
born, 2007). The interview schedule contained the following questions (which
were modified in the light of participants’ responses; (Smith & Osborn, 2007))
“Tell me about your experiences of SC use”, “How did you see yourself, when
you used the drug?” How did others see you, when you used the drug?” “How
are the experiences of SC use are different from using other drugs?”
Data analysis
Ihe interviews were transcribed verbatim, and we analyzed data using IPA.
During the analysis, we applied the aspects of IPA: the accounts of six partici¬
pants were detailed enough to track the participants’ sense-making of their
experiences. IPA works with “double hermeneutics”, where the participants
try to interpret their experiences, and the researcher tries to interpret the
participants’ interpretation of their experiences.
During the analysis, initial notes or comments were added upon close and
multiple readings of the interview transcripts. Through making initial notes
and comments, the researcher captured the meaning of the experience in each
participants accounts. During this deep and intense analytical work (double
hermeneutic), which is often explained by the “hermeneutic cycle” (the re¬
searcher steps into the participants meaning making process and analyzes it
from an interpreter’s perspective (see (Smith et al., 2009)), “emergent themes”
are formed. In the second stage, patterns and themes across the “emergent
themes” are identified and clustered into more abstract “master themes”