Case Studies

• why are case studies conducted?

  to provide insight into a unique situation
• what does triangulation mean?

  cross verification of data from two or more sources to provide validity in findings and conclusions
• how are case studies used in clinical psychology?

  to gather info on different disorders, takes an idiographic aproach as focuses on an individual, in depth analysis of experiences, done through methods such as diagnostic interviews, ppt observtion and medical records, most of the data collected is qualitative data
• what is a strength of case studies?

  high reliability in the use of triangulation as it allows to show how data is consistent, high ecological validity due to ppts being assessed in their natural environments
• what is a weakness of case studies?

  low generalisability as only one participant, low reliability because cannot be repeated again
• what is an example of one clinical case study?

  Luk and Agoha
• what was the aim of Luk and Agoha?

  to describe the experience of a chinese american adolescent girl with anorexia nervosa
• what was the procedure?

  case study used retrospective data, she suffered from body dysmorphia, she underwent individual therapy, group therapy and monitoring of meals, admitted to hospital 3 times
• what were the results?

  found that the main cause of her eating disorder was due to an overbearing mother who couldn't cater to her dietary preferences, after visiting China she remained asymptomatic but refused meals with her family
• what was a weakness of this study?

  low generalisability, small narrow sample, this cannot represent males with AN, those older than adolescents or of other cultures