Interviewing with or without the partner present? - an underexposed dilemma between ethics and methodology in nursing research

Aim. To discuss ethical and methodological challenges related to in-depth interviews with patients and partners when interviewed together or separately. Background. Increased interest in exploring illness phenomena from both patients' and partners' perspectives has emerged. The decision about how to collect data is challenging. Patients and partners can he interviewed separately or together; in both scenarios researchers face complex questions of methodology and ethics. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on individual or joint interviewing and the effect of absence/presence of the partner on data collection. Design. Discussion paper that draws on data from three phenomenological studies. Data sources. Referring to three cases from our phenomenological studies, we discuss the different types of ethical and methodological dilemmas faced when undertaking joint and separate interviews with couples. Furthermore, we discuss how the unexpected presence of the partner potentially influences the data gathered from the patient. Implication for nursing. The cases demonstrate the interrelatedness of ethics and methodology in studies based on in-depth interviews with couples. Nurse researchers may be caught up in a dilemma between ethical concerns and methodological considerations. We argue that the presence of the partner during an interview session might influence the data and favour expressions of shared rather than individual experiences of the phenomenon studied. Furthermore, we argue that ethical concerns must be given higher priority than methodology when interviewing couples. Conclusion. An increased awareness of the tension between ethical and methodological challenges in joint or individual interviewing with patients and partners is necessary, as this issue is underexposed.