Background Qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) has a long history in the social sciences, where its theoretical basis is well established. Qualitative longitudinal (QL) methods are gaining popularity in health care research for exploring the dynamic experience of illness. However, methodological development of QLR is limited within the health literature, and there are very few studies examining the experience of people with colorectal cancer (CRC). Moreover, such studies describe the experiences of those surviving CRC and the voices of those with advanced disease who are approaching the end of their lives remain largely unheard. Aim and objective This study explores the potential of QL interviewing to examine the experiences of those with advanced, metastatic, CRC. I investigate how QL interviews can be best utilised to explore the participants’ accounts of their experiences. I specifically examine the added value and costs of a flexible approach with regard to the frequency and timing of longitudinal interviews. Analytical approaches to QL data are examined to determine their overall value. Methods Sixteen patients with metastatic CRC and eight of their family carers participated in narrative interviews at three time points over the course of a year. The study was designed to include two groups of participants. The first, a routine interval group where interviews were carried out at regular intervals of six months; the second, a flexible interval group where there was an interview at baseline followed by monthly phone calls to track changes in the participants’ circumstances, with a view to conducting the interview as change was occurring. The data were analysed at each time point, and longitudinally using narrative and thematic techniques. Findings The QL design enabled a trusting relationship to evolve, such that private accounts of experience were disclosed. Thus, a nuanced and contextualised understanding of the experience of metastatic CRC materialised. Overall the accounts of CRC were characterised by uncertainty, yet at the same time death was a certainty. Over time, this dual narrative led to participants feeling themselves to be in an ambiguous and liminal state. Some participants described a loss of sense of self, yet others maintained their identity. The work that participants carried out to manage their sense of self changed, as they moved from a collective to an individual identity. In the flexible interval group, monthly telephone calls produced an even more profound research relationship and further enriched the accounts. However, early interviews were only conducted on two occasions and more ethical issues arose as a result of the increased contact. Conclusions By exploring the potential of QL methods, this study has developed the methodology for researching the experiences of those with serious illness. QL interviewing elicits a deep understanding of metastatic CRC that appreciates notions of temporality, process and change. Regular contact with participants between interviews can further enrich the accounts, and is a useful strategy for tracking changes given the unpredictable nature of advanced disease. This thesis showcases the cross-sectional and longitudinal opportunities that QL analysis presents; yet also highlights how longitudinal narrative analysis allows a story to unfold over time which reflects the beginning, the middle and for some the end of the illness experience. Although QL analysis is time consuming, and more contact can amplify ethical issues, the benefits outweigh the constraints.

This thesis has two main objectives. First, it investigates how social support relationships - embedded within kinship systems, friendship networks and associational groups - contribute to the wellbeing of cash transfer beneficiaries in two urban districts in Ghana. Second, it explores how a formal social protection programme affects the wellbeing of beneficiaries both directly and indirectly via its effect on these other support relationships. The thesis takes the Ghana Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) cash transfer programme as a case study, examining how it is implemented in practice within an urban setting, and how social support relationships influence its effect on the wellbeing of cash recipients. Throughout this thesis wellbeing is used as a discursive space for looking at the often neglected non-material dimensions of wellbeing. In particular, it takes a relational wellbeing approach which emphasises how material, emotional and cognitive dimensions of wellbeing are embedded in social relationships. It uses a Qualitative Longitudinal Research (QLR) approach, complemented by a qualitative social network analysis to map the constellation of relationships on which urban recipients of LEAP transfers rely, and to explore the motivations and rationalities underpinning them. The findings of the thesis add to existing research on social relationships and cash transfers in Africa by extending the analysis to a contemporary urban context. They challenge the assumption that urban residents can draw upon a vibrant support system, by finding that such relationships can be unreliable, provide inadequate support and can be associated with exclusion and marginalization. In addition, the thesis finds that norms underpinning support relationships are constantly being reshaped and challenged. The thesis also highlights the important but diverse effects that formal social protection programmes can have on material, emotional and cognitive wellbeing of recipients, both directly and indirectly via their effect on other significant social relationships of beneficiaries.

Subjektyvių seksualumo išgyvenimų paauglystėje analizė nėra dažna tema psichologinių tyrimų lauke. Tačiau tai nereiškia, kad turėtume sutikti su paplitusia, tačiau mokslinę žiūrą ribojančia perspektyva, seksualumą tapatinančia tik su seksualine elgsena. Šioje disertacijoje atsisakoma išankstinių nuostatų paauglių seksualumą vertinti tik kaip problematišką ir rizikingą reiškinį. Kaip heteroseksualios mergaitės išgyvena savo seksualumą viduriniosios paauglystės laikotarpiu (14-17m.)? Kaip jų seksualumas atsiskleidžia kasdienybėje? Atsakymams atrasti šiame tyrime pasitelkta kokybinio tęstinio tyrimo strategija ir interpretacinės fenomenologinės analizės metodas. 9 tyrimo dalyvių interviu medžiaga atskleidė, jog 14 -15 m. amžiuje seksualumo patirtis galima struktūruoti kaip keturias metatemas: fizinio seksualumo atpažinimą; seksualios Aš fragmentiškumą; seksualumo patyrimą kaip santykio Aš-priešingos lyties KITAS, dalį; buvimo seksualia, bet ne „pasileidusia“: naujo tapatumo paieškas. Disertacijoje formuluojama žvilgsnio situacijos koncepcija, aiškinanti seksualios Aš įsisąmoninimą. Pristatomas nuoseklus buvimą ir tapsmą seksualia paaugle iliustruojantis atvejis. / The experience of sexuality in adolescence is not a frequent research object in the field of psychological inquiry. However, it does not mean that we must accept the narrow identification of sexuality with the sexual behavior. The discourse of this thesis denies the prejudices to see adolescent sexuality as the problematic and risky phenomenon only. How the girls undergo their experience of sexuality in mid-adolescence (age 14-17)? The novel strategy of the developmental longitudinal qualitative research and the method of interpretative phenomenological analysis were selected to answer this question. The findings of nine girls (age of 14-15) interview revealed that sexual experience can be structured as four meta-themes: a) recognition of physical sexuality; b) a fragmented sexual Self; c) sexual experience as a part of intersubjective relation between SELF and the opposite sex OTHER; d) a dilemma of being sexual, but not „promiscuous“: search for a new identity. The material provides new data on the first conscious sexual experiences, conceptualized as a gaze situation. The processes of being and becoming a sexual person are uncovered through the coherent case study.