Contents Introduction main body

Example 1: nurses’ paediatric pain management practices

One of the authors of this paper (AT) has used a case study approach to explore nurses’ paediatric pain management practices. This involved collecting several datasets:

1. 
   Observational data to gain a picture about actual pain management practices.
   
2. 
   Questionnaire data about nurses’ knowledge about paediatric pain management practices and how well they felt they managed pain in children.
   
3. 
   Questionnaire data about how critical nurses perceived pain management tasks to be.
   

These datasets were analysed separately and then compared and demonstrated that nurses’ level of theoretical did not impact on the quality of their pain management practices. Nor did individual nurse’s perceptions of how critical a task was effect the likelihood of them carrying out this task in practice. There was also a difference in self-reported and observed practices; actual (observed) practices did not confirm to best practice guidelines, whereas self-reported practices tended to. There have been a number of notable case studies in the history of psychology. Much of Freud's work and theories were developed through the use of individual case studies. Some great examples of case studies in psychology include:

• 
  Anna O: Anna O. was a pseudonym of a woman named Bertha Pappenheim, a patient of a physician named Josef Breuer. While she was never a patient of Freud's, Freud and Breuer discussed her case extensively. The woman was experiencing symptoms of a condition that was then known as hysteria and found that talking about her problems helped relieve her symptoms. Her case played an important part in the development of talk therapy as an approach to mental health treatment.
  
• 
  Phineas Gage: Phineas Gage was a railroad employee who experienced a terrible accident in which an explosion sent a metal rod through his skull, damaging important portions of his brain. Gage recovered from his accident but was left with serious changes in both personality and behavior.
  
• 
  Genie: Genie was a young girl subjected to horrific abuse and isolation. The case study of Genie allowed researchers to study whether language could be taught even after critical periods for language development had been missed. Her case also served as an example of how scientific research may interfere with treatment and lead to further abuse of vulnerable individuals.
  

Such cases demonstrate how case research can be used to study things that researchers could not replicate in experimental settings. In Genie's case, her horrific
⁶Feagin, J.R. Orum, A.M., & Sjoberg, G. (Eds.)(1991). A Case for the Case Study. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press)|ISBN 978-0807843215
abuse had denied her the opportunity to learn language at critical points in her development.
This is clearly not something that researchers could ethically replicate, but conducting a case study on Genie allowed researchers the chance to study phenomena that are otherwise impossible to reproduce.
Tips for Selecting a Good Topic for Psychology Case Studies