Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is a qualitative research methodology which is concerned with understanding personal lived experience. According to Reid, Flowers and Larkin (2005), this methodology is particularly well suited to the field of sexual health and sexuality as it moves beyond disease and deficit focused approaches and complements the traditional biomedical discourse. For sexual health practitioners, the applied focus of this research methodology also lends itself to the development of sexual health resources and potential interventions.
This paper provides an overview of IPA as a research methodology and discuss the advantages of using such an approach within the field of sexual health and sexuality. As an exemplar of how this methodology can be used, the author’s doctoral research will be discussed; a study which aims to explore how women cope with the sexual side effects of antidepressant medication. By using an inductive approach such as IPA, it is hoped that women’s voices and their experiences can contribute to this complex, under – researched phenomenon and add to the emerging body of quantitative research that exists around the sexual difficulties often associated with antidepressant use.
