ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the case of a young clinician and researcher, Dr Julie Anderson, who would like to understand how young patients, 20 to 30 years old, cope with the psychosocial consequences of multiple sclerosis. It mainly focuses on the experience of multiple sclerosis, which applies the qualitative method of focus groups to investigate the experiences of a specific age group of patients with this degenerative disease. The chapter explains the uses of focus groups, and also describes the process of organising and running a focus group. It also explains how data saturation is reached in focus groups and discusses the process of coding and analysing focus groups. The chapter explains the concept of focus groups as being the ideal research method for this case, because it makes participants feel equal in a group of people with the same condition and allows them not only to share experiences but also to challenge each other.
