CHAPTER 4 88 Abstract Background: Uncovering the perspective of children with multiple disabilities is important in healthcare to enable person-centred care. For occupational therapists, uncovering the child perspective on meaningful activities is necessary to set appropriate goals for treatment. For children with multiple disabilities, expressing themselves in an interview is not self-evident. The interviewer should adapt his communication to the child, but a clear decision algorithm is missing. This study aims to identify helpful interview techniques and interviewer skills to uncover the perspective of children. Methods: Videos of nine interviews with children with a mitochondrial disorder, conducted by an occupational therapist, were analysed by five researchers. First, the successfulness in uncovering the child perspective was analysed. Next, the communicative abilities of the children and type of questions of the interviewer were observed. Thirdly, a qualitative directed content analysis of the semi-structured interviews was conducted. Findings: An interview pattern was observed in the children’s communication leading to six successful interviews. Children communicated verbally on four different levels and also used non-verbal communication. The interviewer used five types of questions which varied between and within the children. The content analysis resulted in two themes: parental influences and interviewer skills. Conclusion: Results show the importance to match the type of questions to the verbal communication level of the child and revealed several interviewer skills and techniques. An overview to guide tailor-made interviewing is presented.
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