Narrative Inquiry Methodology and Family Research: An Innovative Approach to Understanding Acquired Brain Injuries

Abstract

Family qualitative research poses unique methodological considerations. In choosing a methodology when the research unit is a family it is critical the philosophical underpinnings, characteristics, and methods of the methodology can align with a family systems paradigm and accommodate transactional level data collection. While other qualitative methodologies have been utilized with family units (grounded theory, phenomenology), the combination of narrative inquiry (NI) and families is unique. In this paper, I describe why and how I used NI to explore families’ perspectives of the impact of acquired brain injury (ABI); adding to existing methodological knowledge by demonstrating NI has potential relevance and applicability for research with family systems.