(Torgé READY FOR PUBLICATION)


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Using conjoint interviews with couples that have been living with disabilities and illnesses for a long 

time – implications and insights 

 

Cristina Joy Torgé 

 

 

Abstract. This article discusses conjoint interviews and takes its starting point from a study with nine 

older couples who have been living with disabilities for a long period of time. Conjoint interviewing 

where dyads are interviewed together produces a different kind of data from individual interviews – 

specifically data that conduce different ways of talking about “we-ness” and produce interaction between 

the participants. This article discusses how this appeared in a study that was interested in the 

understandings and actualizations of spousal care when both have a disability or illness. The method 

leads to an analysis centered on mutuality and has potential to problematize traditional caring tasks and 

caring roles in the context of living with disability or chronic illness. Potentials and limitations of the 

method are discussed.  

 

Keywords: couples, conjoint interviews, dyadic methods, spousal care, disability 

 

Please cite this article as: 

Torgé, C. J. (2013). Using conjoint interviews with couples that have been living with disabilities and 

illnesses for a long time – implications and insights. Qualitative Studies, 4(2): 100-113. 

 

Introduction 

Individual interviews are still somewhat taken as the norm in the social sciences. This is illustrated 

metaphorically in Kvale and Brinkmann’s well-cited textbook on qualitative interview research through 

Rubin’s image of figure/ground (representing the interaction between the interviewer and the 

interviewed, and the meaning created between them). The interview is also defined as “literally an inter 

view, an inter-change of views between two persons conversing about a theme of mutual interest” (Kvale 

& Brinkmann, 2009, p. 2). Consequently, even relational phenomena such as love or cooperation are 

studied from a collection of individual views (Kenny et al., 2006). But what kind of data, and what other 

kinds of knowledge can arise when study designs presuppose mutuality? There is a need to reflect the 

mutual dimensions of relationships more directly in research, through using interview methods that are 

also inherently relational, such as dyadic interviewing of couples (Eisikovits & Koren, 2010). 

 

This article focuses on dyadic interviews, as a method directed at specific types of relations, and which 

produces data of certain characteristics. The discussion takes its starting point from a conjoint interview 

study on spousal help and support made with partners who had both been living with disability and 

illness for a long period of time. The article’s aim is two-fold: it aims to discuss the kind of data produced 

in these conjoint interviews, but it also aims to explore how the resulting dyadic data can provide insights 

on spousal care and support in a disability context. There are three questions to discuss: What are the 

characteristics of the data generated in these conjoint interviews? How can the resulting data contribute to 

understanding care in disability contexts? And what are the potentials and limitations of the method? 

 

I begin by describing how dyadic interviewing is increasingly being used in the field of health and illness 

research – especially regarding spousal care.  This is followed by examples from my own data of how 

conjoint interviews shaped stories centered on relationality. “We-ness” and “we-talk” emerged in the 

interviews, but these are also results that help one understand the couples’ perspective on mutual spousal 



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caring. The interview data were also interactive and performative, which gave insights into the 

possibilities and difficulties in caring with disabilities. By showing how the data shape analysis, this 

article shows how conjoint interviewing and the resulting dyadic data are useful for generating further 

insights regarding informal care in disability contexts. 

 

Dyadic interviews 

Dyadic interviews have been discussed as a potential alternative to individual interviews for the last 30-40 

years, both in social sciences and family research (Allan, 1980; Bennet & McAvity, 1994; Arskey, 1996). It 

has been used to study different pair relations, such as couples, best friends, siblings, parents and 

children, or even co-workers (some examples: Mauthner, 2000; Rosenblum, 2000). Like focus groups that 

have not been used in early social science research, dyadic interviews have not been widely used until 

recent years although it was an established interview method in therapeutic contexts (Bennet & McAvity, 

1994; Morris, 2001). Until today, interviewing dyads may still often be met with negative attitudes and 

skepticism, possibly because of the dominance of atomistic views of the self (Bjørnholt & Farstad, 2012). 

 

Dyadic interviews are directed at specific types of relations. A condition for a group to be called a dyad is 

the experience of a “‘we’ relationship”, formed through having shared time and space together (Eisikovitz 

& Koren, 2010). The pre-existing relationship between the interviewed dyad is thus, rather than a 

contingency, a premise in the dyadic interview. Compared to focus groups that usually rely on ‘ad hoc’ 

groups of people that might not previously know each other (Morgan, 1996; Hydén & Bülow, 2003), 

dyadic interviewing is directed at naturally occurring pairs. As with focus groups, the topic of the 

interview is determined by the researcher. However, rather than keeping a moderator role, the 

interviewer asks questions directed at the dyad, as individuals or as a pair. This allows the researcher to 

gain insight into the dyad’s construction of a “concurrent framework”, at the same time that the 

participants can “represent themselves not just as individuals but also as concurrent participants in a 

relationship” (Morris, 2001, p. 558). In other words, the researcher can capture individual views as well as 

shared perceptions of common experiences, for example regarding family life and family history (Bennet 

& McAvity, 1994). This contributes another difference to focus groups, as the pre-existing relationship 

takes on an added layer of significance in the dyadic interview situation through the researcher’s aim to 

understand the dyad’s “joint” view. 

 

Dyads can be interviewed together, separately but simultaneously, or separately at different occasions 

(Eisikovits & Koren, 2010). Dyadic interviewing can also be used in combination with other data collection 

forms (Arskey, 1996). Generally, however, when the interview method is named, the term “dyadic 

interview” seems to refer to any interview method involving dyads as the unit of data collection and 

analysis, whereas “conjoint interviews” (or sometimes “joint interviews”) are those in which the dyad is 

interviewed simultaneously in the same interview situation. The conjoint interview is also what was used 

in the study at hand. 

 

Reviews of the literature show that individual perspectives still tend to be the norm, but that there is 

nevertheless a growing interest in exploring dyadic perspectives (Braun et al., 2009; Walker & Luszcz, 

2009). It is also possible that other studies employ dyadic interview methods but do not use the terms 

“dyadic interview”, “joint interview” or “couple interview” to describe their methods. 

 

Couplehood in disability and illness 

The usefulness of dyadic interviewing seems to be reflected in the growing number of studies using 

dyadic designs in the substantive field of health research, specifically on partners’ or spouses’ experiences 

of illness in the family. Different kinds and combinations of dyadic interviewing have been used to 



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understand the impact of living and coping with illness when a partner or spouse acquires physical or 

cognitive impairments (e.g. Clipp & George, 1992; Schumacher, 1996; Jo et al., 2007; Morris, 2001).  

 

Within the fields of aging, disability and care, there is much recent literature whose results build on 

dyadic interviews. Examples of such studies are those conducted by Yorgason et al. (2007, 2010) on older 

couples living with various impairments; by van Nes, Runge and Jonsson (2009) on an older couple’s 

intertwined occupational patterns after stroke; by Soodeen, Gregory and Bond (2007) on older spouses 

where one qualifies for home care; and by Cahill et al. (2009) on care burden using interviews with older 

people together with their spouse or adult child carers. Dyadic interviews with older couples could also 

be about access to health-related services when aging in place (Racher, 2003) or their patterns of mutual 

caring as they acquire disabilities and live without children (Ahn & Kim, 2007). Literature on older 

spouses and spousal care are also gaining ground in the context of couplehood in dementia, where the 

views of both the spouse and person with dementia can be explored (e.g. McGovern, 2011; Molyneaux et 

al., 2011; Hellström, Nolan & Lundh, 2005a, 2005b).  

 

The starting point of these studies is that the experience of disability or illness does not only affect the 

individuals in question, but also affect their intimate partners in terms of relationship and communication 

issues, help-seeking behavior, practical consequences in everyday life and planning for the future. Some 

of these studies note how literature on disability, spousal care and aging – like much of qualitative 

interview research in general – often are constructed from the perspective of one partner alone, leading to 

health services directed at individual caregivers or their care recipients, instead of looking at the couple’s 

common need for support (Racher, 2003; Braun et al., 2009; Ahn & Kim, 2007). The perspective of the 

family unit, the complexity of family caregiving and how families produce joint accounts of illness, they 

argue, are obscured in studies based on individual interviews – something that might be counterbalanced 

through using specifically dyadic approaches to research.  

 

Description of the study and participants 

This article takes its starting point from a study with nine older couples, 60 years or older at the time of 

the interview, where both partners had lived with disability and/or chronic illness for a long period of 

time. The aim of the study was to find out how couples that had both been living with disabilities describe 

and exchange spousal help and support. As the participants were ageing together with disabilities, 

another ambition of the study was also to find out – retrospectively from the couples’ perspectives – how 

changes in help-giving looked like when both partners’ needs and capacities change with disability 

trajectory and time. 

 

The participating couples, married or co-habiting, were mostly recruited through an information letter 

that was distributed to various disability organizations in southeastern Sweden, as well as through 

snowball sampling. An information letter described the purpose of the study and informed that the 

interviews were to be made conjointly. One couple with visual impairments had to be informed about the 

research through telephone. The couples interested in participating then had the choice to contact the 

researcher themselves or express a wish to be contacted. The study fulfills thereby the research ethics 

criteria of informed consent. The initial choice of conjoint interviewing was also made from an ethical 

consideration that it would be difficult to make partners anonymous for each other in the written study, 

especially if a small group of people were interviewed. A third ethical consideration was only couples 

with physical (and not cognitive) disabilities were asked to participate. Names of persons have been 

changed in the writing of the study. 

 



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Previous research on spousal care have often been based on identifications of being either  a “carer” or 

“spouse with disability”, even though it might be possible that both partners have impairments or 

illnesses (see e.g. Parker, 1993; Ahn & Kim, 2007). In the study in question, the individual roles as 

caregiver and care receiver were not pre-determined or self-evident, as both had long-term disabilities. 

The participants varied with regard to types of disabilities or illnesses and when these were acquired. 

Examples are cerebral palsy (CP), blindness, hearing impairments, multiple sclerosis (MS) and polio. 

Others had genetic or neurological conditions, and some suffered illnesses in youth or middle-age that 

had led to disablement. The participants also received or were entitled to different kinds of formal 

support such as home help, help with cleaning, transport services, assistance for the blind, loan of 

technical aids or personal assistance. The accessibility of formal help in the welfare system is an important 

socio-historical context, as this shaped these individuals’ possibilities of building families, not least with 

partners that also have disabilities and/or illnesses. The existing disability policies in the Swedish welfare 

system also serve as a frame through which we can appreciate the voluntary help-giving within families 

and informal circles that continue to take place and make up indispensable support for people with 

disabilities (see Jeppsson Grassman, Whitaker & Taghizadeh Larsson, 2009). 

 

In interviews, the couples were asked about the effects of disability on their everyday lives, their help 

needs and sources of help, mutual caring, and their views about the practical implications of ageing 

together with sometimes severe or worsening physical disabilities. An interview guide was used as a tool 

to cover themes of interest. However, the couples could also talk freely about related themes. The 

interviews were transcribed and then coded and compared. In this current article only a few codes, which 

seemed to have resulted from the interview method, are discussed. Empirical results on how to 

understand help-giving between the couples is discussed elsewhere (Torgé, 2013). The focus of the 

following discussion is how the conjoint interviews influenced the kind of data produced, and the 

possibilities and limitations of the dyadic data in understanding spousal care with disabilities.  

  

“We-ness” as an interview effect and result 

What kind of data is generated in the conjoint interviews? It is obvious from first glance that the conjoint 

interviews produced another kind of conversation than if individual interviews were used. In terms of 

language, the most obvious indication of this interaction is the use of “us”, “we” and “you” (referring to 

me as the interviewer). Most couples were also interviewed in their own homes, adding to their sense of 

being a unit consisting of two individual members – a sense “of being two” (in the words of a participant), 

or what seems to be a sense of we-ness. 

 

In reflecting on this “we-ness” or presentation of themselves as a unit, it soon became clear that their 

narratives of being a unit were as much shaped by the interview situation and the research focus on 

mutuality, as they were shaped by the couples themselves and how they voiced their story. What was 

created was not only a conversation about a topic (caring and ageing as a couple with disabilities); the 

interview setting also encouraged a certain form of interaction to take place, which reinforced the sense of 

couplehood as a “we”. 

 

When couples talked about themselves, “we-talk” not only underlined the pre-existing relationship as a 

fact but also produced stories about “our experiences” (see Seale et al., 2008). Included in the verbal 

presentation of “we-ness” are common experiences and endeavors – including practical considerations of 

both of them living with disabilities or chronic illnesses – that have created them as a unit over time. 

When the couples talked about mutual help, they not only retold concrete examples in their everyday 

lives but also used phrases such as “fighting our unique – but similar – illnesses together” or “the right 



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hand helping the left”. Sometimes, this presentation of “we-ness” had the effect that personal qualities 

became projected as an attribute of the relationship itself: 

 

Ellen: You know, it’s like this – we have always tried to fight [illness], together.  

Folke: We aren’t the types that give up. 

Ellen: Even if I might say that ‘I give up now,’ I never do it. Instead, we try to battle these things 

that we have. It just works that way, though it doesn’t work well sometimes. 

 

“We-talk” also meant tracing their history together, which in this case was often framed by the socio-

historical context of the disability rights movement in Sweden. These and other events in their lives have 

historically formed the “we” from whose perspective they now speak. Disability organizations – but also 

self-help groups, summer camps for the disabled and special schools that have closed down long ago – 

not only represented the physical setting of their stories, but were also used to show a common “disability 

identity” that stretches back for a certain time, as well as another aspect of their common endeavor. 

Conjoint interviewing seems appropriate in capturing these shared experiences of events lived through 

together, or in Eisikovitz and Koren’s words (2010, p. 1643), the “dyadic being-in-the-world, in addition to 

the relationship component”. This common history is apparent, for example, in this interview with Gert 

and Harriet: 

 

Interviewer: How did you meet? Was it through the [disability organization]? 

Gert: Yes, you could say that. From the beginning, since [we] were at the sanatorium. We played 

board games together. Ah!  

Interviewer: And then you met again? 

Gert: Yes, around 1951. She and I joined the [disability organization]. /…/   

Harriet: But now, if you look at the local organization, it’s almost just me and you that have had 

polio. There aren’t so many left. 

 

As mentioned above, this historical context is significant in understanding how the couples seemed to 

value informal help and care. It is notable, for instance, that the couples simultaneously talked about the 

importance of fighting for their rights to welfare services, and informal help from friends, children and 

each other as a regular, welcome and indispensable feature of their lives. 

 

To live “with” – and being “right in it” as resources  

When they talked about help they gave and received from each other as partners, the couples brought up 

concrete examples. Much of the help they gave each other was in terms of emotional support, but this too 

could include hands-on help such as support in making formal care arrangements, communicating with 

professionals on behalf of the partner, or “looking after” and protecting the partner’s privacy, best 

interests and integrity when formal help services were involved. Notably, although many of the couples 

also received different kinds of formal and informal help, they also brought up many examples of helping 

each other with physical and instrumental tasks on a regular basis, such as helping to eat, dress, go to the 

toilet, and move around outside the residence. 

  

The sense of “we-ness” also took another dimension in the interviews as it was often expressed as a 

resource in understanding and helping each other. Setbacks (for example, worsening health conditions), as 

well as triumphs (such as having been entitled to assistance) were expressed as something they 

experienced together and not only at an individual level. Further, the shared experience of disability was 

described as a resource because they saw themselves as being “right in it”, thus being able to understand 

their partner in ways they thought others without such experiences could not. For example, the 



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participants described recognizing in each other the feeling of uncertainty in the face of diagnosis (“I have 

been there myself”) or how symptoms felt in one’s body (“We know how it feels to have a fierce diabetic 

attack”). The participants also seemed well-read about their partners’ symptoms, medications and 

functional limitations and saw themselves as better able to anticipate and respond to their needs. 

 

An expression of this mutual understanding as a care resource comes from Cecilia and Danne, who had 

both been in previous relationships with non-disabled people. Although their past partners also used to 

provide help, Cecilia and Danne insisted that their shared experience of disability added another 

dimension for being able to anticipate and understand each other. In the interview fragment below where 

they compared the help they got from previous relationships, they seemed to refer to two kinds of 

commonalities: their commonality as both identifying as disabled people, and the sense of “we-ness” as an 

attribute of being a “close couple”. That they also finished each other’s sentences and confirmed what 

each other was saying also contributed to the common construction of this “we-ness” that cannot 

otherwise be captured if they were interviewed individually: 

 

Cecilia: Yes, of course, but it can be difficult for a man –  

Danne: – or a woman! 

Cecilia: – or a woman – to live with a severely disabled partner. It’s hard.  

Interviewer: Why should it be easier for disabled people to do that? Why should it be easier? 

Cecilia: Because we – 

Danne: It’s this: we are right in it. We are right in it!  

Cecilia: We help each other. 

Danne: We help each other, or – 

Cecilia: We understand each other.  

Danne: We understand, we understand. I myself know how it is. I know my own body and all 

that. And I know how… I mean, a healthy person can’t always take himself down to that level. 

Cecilia: No. 

Danne: It depends. If they grew together to become… 

Cecilia: A close couple. 

Danne: … a close couple. 

 

To talk about “we-ness” as a resource then, is also to have a feeling that others outside the relationship – 

though they may be indispensable sources of help as well – are not able to tap into that resource of a 

common background and common situation. This appeared in other interviews as well, for example when 

participants described how friends had a hard time understanding why they continued to give help 

despite one’s own pain and tiredness.  

 

“We-ness” and “we-talk”, aside from being an interview effect, was thus also a result. The couples 

expressed and confirmed themselves as a unit in the different ways in the interviews – through a shared 

history, shared experiences, shared values and shared endeavours. Further, the sense of “we-ness” 

became important in trying to understand why instrumental care and help are given. 

 

Interactive and performative data 

Another characteristic of conjoint interview data is that they are interactive data. As Allan (1980) writes 

about joint interviews, the interaction between the participants constitutes data not easily obtainable 

through other methods. Interaction is obvious at the textual level, but there is also an interpersonal level 

of interaction (see Reissman, 1993). This was apparent in the interviews in at least two ways. First, 

couplehood and helping also became performative as the couples, through their interaction, gave insight on 



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how it is to live together and give help when both have disabilities. Second, interaction between the 

partners meant that they not only could affirm each other’s answers and continue each other’s line of 

thought, but also contest, question and disagree. These interactions helped give insight to some problems 

that the couples faced in living and ageing together with disabilities. 

 

As mentioned earlier, the couples talked about what they helped each other with in their everyday lives. 

These included activities that may traditionally be seen as informal caring tasks. But in many of the 

interviews, the couples not only talked about – but also performed – help-giving through interaction, 

through small gestures of everyday help and support. This performative aspect was no doubt facilitated 

by the fact that the couples were interviewed in their homes. Help-giving was thus made, even if they 

occurred in an interview situation, in an authentic environment where they would anyway be performed. 

In the course of the interview sessions, a spouse helped his partner drink from a glass and another helped 

his wife in blowing her nose. If a partner had a hearing or speech difficulty, the other partner helped 

convey the question or the answer. One couple showed me, because of their different dexterity difficulties, 

how only one of them could open a window but it takes the other one to close it. Another couple was keen 

to show me homemade household tools that that the husband produced for his wife. Another man in a 

wheelchair demonstrated how he fixed his wife’s wheelchair after a puncture. 

 

A different, but very striking example of this performativity was in the interview with Lucia and Krister, 

who had congenital disabilities. Both had mobility problems and Krister had difficulties with 

communication. In the interview, Lucia reminded me that Krister should have a chance to answer first 

because it was easy for her to take over. Soon, however, Lucia also acted as an “interpreter” to our 

conversation. In the interview, they not only talked about mutuality and helping in everyday life, but this 

was also enacted:  

 

Lucia: Start with [Krister]. I babble all the time as it is. [Interviewer laughs]. That’s what women do. 

But sure, if the other person has a speech difficulty… I’ve got to hold myself. So I don’t babble 

through, I mean [she laughs].  

Interviewer: Yes, [Krister]? 

Krister: … I was … [slurred: disabled from birth].  

Lucia: [clarifying] disabled from birth. 

Krister: … and I learned to [slurred: speak] … when I was eight years old.  

Interviewer: You learned to…? 

Lucia: [clarifying] to speak. 

Krister: Yes, when I was eight years old. I … had a speech therapist for five years and as [slurred: a 

baby] I had … a woman coming one hour a day … [slurred: teaching]… 

Interviewer: What did you say last? 

Lucia: [clarifying] teaching. 

Krister: … me. 

 

In terms of content, what was told in this interview fragment is the story of Krister’s congenital disability 

and his early communication difficulties. Textually, this story was expressed despite Krister’s articulation 

difficulties and with Lucia as an interpreter. However, it is the interactive element of the data that was 

most striking because it gave concrete insight into an instance of help-giving that occurred in the couple’s 

everyday life. Lucia’s comment on how easy it was for us to take over the conversation was revealing of 

her desire to give Krister a voice (literally and figuratively) and was an act of concern. In this way, the 

interview fragment could also be interpreted as a kind of balancing act between allowing independence 

and giving help, when a partner has more severe disabilities than oneself. In another part of the interview 



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for instance, Lucia related how she wanted to protect Krister’s best interests by sometimes being a 

mediator between him and his assistants. Although she did not want to interfere with Krister’s and the 

assistants’ professional relationship, she felt that it was in Krister’s interests that she stepped up for him.  

 

Disagreements are also data 

So far, it may seem that conjoint interviews with couples only result in positive examples of “we-ness”. 

But it is also possible that partners question each other or express different points of views. The ability to 

shift between the couples’ jointly constructed view and individual understandings of the same events is 

one advantage of dyadic interviewing according to Taylor and de Vocht (2011), as this can give insight on 

how individual views overlap to varying degrees. 

 

The spousal relationship involves normative and role dimensions that participants can bring into the 

interview situation as a couple “on stage”. Intimate relations are also laden with social expectations about 

caring for and caring about each other as “natural” parts of the relationship, that may cast a shadow on 

aspects of care related to hard work, negotiation, or lack of choice. It could be argued that the interviewed 

couples were keen on presenting themselves in a positive light in the interviews, and may not have 

wanted to reveal personal opinions that might cause conflict. If this is so, this would explain the mostly 

concurrent and “we”-centered narratives. But although dyadic interviews could be less candid than 

individual ones, other researchers observe that couples in conjoint interviews do not necessarily spare 

each other from negative remarks and that it is uncertain if themes of disagreement would have emerged 

if participants had been interviewed individually (Molyneaux et al., 2011; Bjørnholt & Farstad, 2012). 

Questioning each other and other expressions that things do not always go so smoothly also appeared in 

the study in question. These are nevertheless fertile points of analysis and can be rich sources of data on 

how partners give meaning to the same event in different ways (Schumacher, 1996; Beitin & Allen, 2005). 

 

One example of this kind spontaneous questioning in the interviews was between Ellen and Folke, as they 

discussed whose disability required more understanding and who understood the other best. Previous to 

this interview fragment, we were talking about their different disabilities and how these affected their 

everyday lives in a practical way. They then talked about the difficulties in understanding each other’s 

symptoms: 

 

Folke: [to his wife] I … I wonder why you always say that your illness is so much worse than 

mine… 

Interviewer: Oh. 

Ellen: [giggles] 

Folke: It’s quite interesting. I mean, if you understand… but still experience that yours is worse 

than mine… 

Ellen: … Yeah. I do that. 

Folke: Or is it because I spoil you? I’m nice and I get … I get your medicine for you and never say, 

“Oh, go get it yourself”. 

Ellen: No. It’s because you don’t see these tremors that I have inside, inside my body.  

Folke: No, I understand that it’s not easy. But I can just observe that, um, a little bit like a car 

mechanic observes that, “Okay, the motor makes a strange noise, but it’s not serious. It’s going to 

last a few more years”. End of story. But the woman who owns the car, she says, “But it’s 

irritating, it makes such a sound!” And, in the same way, you have your tremors. Okay. Fact 

noted!   

Interviewer: But, does it have to do with, that some aspects of the illness are invisible? That you 

still need to express it for it to be obvious to others? 



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Ellen: [Sighs]. And [Folke] has a hard time understanding these signals…  

Folke: I could be so tired and wiped out that I could drop. But even if I tell Ellen, “Just five 

minutes. I need to lie down for a while. I can’t take it anymore”, I say it in such a dry way so she 

doesn’t even understand it. And instead you say, “Can you go fetch this and that? And can you 

go wash the dishes?” Like, you don’t seem to understand that I feel like a catastrophe when I say 

“I think I’m going to pass out soon”. 

 

Both Ellen and Folke seemed to want to present themselves to me as the more understanding party by 

demonstrating the others’ non-understanding. But as they talked, they simultaneously also had to explain 

to each other the difficulty of communicating their symptoms and needs. The shifting nature of 

disabilities could mean that help needs – but also one’s capacities to help – changes over time. When 

symptoms, such as tiredness and fatigue, cannot be communicated, this may lead to problems when one 

partner’s expectations do not meet the other’s capacities. Help-giving requires that the other party has the 

ability to provide help, and this might not always be the case if one’s partner also struggles with his / her 

disabled body. There is therefore an aspect of “timing”, which is a practical consideration when two 

people live together with disabilities. What Ellen and Folke’s interaction also suggests is that some aspects 

of disability are invisible, although they are concrete bodily experiences. Although disability is a shared 

concern within the family and a shared practical issue in everyday life, one’s experience of disability thus 

cannot be fully shared – even with a person that one has lived with for many years. In this way, “we-ness” 

does not represent a complete creation of a unit. Rather, an insight from this dialogue is that the “we” is 

nevertheless made up of two individuals that may have, in this case, different needs and experiences of 

disability that they need to communicate in order to support each other. Because the subjective experience 

of disability and illness must first be put into words for others to understand and act on (see Kleinman, 

1988), this might also pose challenges, for instance if one partner has communication difficulties. 

 

Discussion 

The aim of this article was to discuss the characteristics of data produced in conjoint interviews and to 

explore how dyadic data can give insights into spousal care and support in the context of disability. As 

the examples from the interview showed, the conjoint interviews produced a certain kind of data – one 

that produced stories of “we-ness” and was also interactive. But because conjoint interviewing creates 

data that are characteristically relational, it in turn also forces the researcher to analyze in terms of 

mutuality. What this article has shown is that conjoint interview data produce accounts of the couple 

seeing themselves as a unit, where the sense of “we-ness” plays an important role as a ground and 

resource of practical and emotional help-giving, even despite other help sources. In this way, the 

interviews captured, in a distinct way, the relational aspects of spousal caregiving. These relational 

aspects of care could only be understood to the full in light of the couple’s shared history and experiences.  

 

Even interaction and performativity, which permeated the interviews, contributed with unique aspects 

that could not have appeared if individual interviews had been chosen. The interactive elements showed 

how spousal help-giving could occur naturally, but also that it was not unproblematic. Even if spousal 

caring was actualized in many ways despite both partners’ disabilities, the conjoint interviews also 

revealed limitations and practical issues for this help-giving, for example the aspect of “timing” and 

communication. 

 

Implications of conjoint interviewing 

It is of course possible, as criticized about focus group data, to analyze interactive material through 

showing what has been said by individuals alone (Kitzinger, 1994). However, that would not do the 

interactive elements justice, especially if interviewing as dyads was chosen precisely because of its 



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interactive possibilities. In choosing dyadic design, “pair relatedness – variously called interdependence, 

reciprocity, and mutuality by researchers” (Thompson & Walker, 1982, p. 890) also becomes an obvious 

focus for analysis. But besides the focus on mutuality, can data from conjoint interviews give new 

perspectives and knowledge?  

 

Some examples from previous studies demonstrate how employing conjoint interviews not only 

produced results that centered on relationality, but also generated new perspectives. One example is a 

series of studies on couplehood in dementia. When they conducted separate interviews with persons with 

dementia and their spouses (dyadic interviews but not conjoint), Hellström, Nolan and Lundh (2005a) and 

Keady and Nolan (2003) already developed relational notions such as “nurturative relational context” and 

“working alone / together / apart”. Nevertheless, in one case study where Hellström, Nolan and Lundh 

(2005b) interviewed a couple conjointly, “doing things together”  emerged as the strongest category, 

leading the researchers to conclude that the notion of autonomy may sometimes be subordinate to the 

notion of couplehood. A second example comes from occupational therapy. Using a mix of separate and 

conjoint interviews, van Nes, Runge and Jonsson (2009) discussed how a couple’s activities intertwined 

after one partner’s stroke. The conjoint interviews resulted in codes such as “three hands” and “one 

body”, where doing activities with the spouse became an extension of one’s own activities in an 

experiential and personal way. According to the authors, this contrasted with the predominantly 

individual-based perspective of occupation that gave little knowledge about activities people did 

together, and they hoped to contribute to the theoretical development of the concept of co-occupation. 

These examples show how conjoint interviewing can give other perspectives than what is already known 

from other types of interviews, through the dyadic perspectives offered by conjoint data. 

 

In my own study, the choice to interview the couples conjointly may also have implications for the 

continued discussion of spousal care in disability contexts. The importance of informal help-giving is 

sometimes obscured in disability research, possibly because it is thought to undermine the focus on 

disability rights and welfare services (Jeppsson Grassman, Whitaker & Taghizadeh Larsson, 2009). These 

conjoint interviews however, showed that according to these spouses’ experiences, engagement in 

disability rights issues and emphasizing the importance of informal help need not be contradictory. The 

experience of “we-ness” that emerged in the interviews were the ground for the exchange of instrumental 

and emotional care tasks, because of the feeling that one understood the partner best due to personal 

events they have been through, and through the common experience of disability or illness. 

Understanding the value of relationships is thus very relevant in appreciating why informal help is given 

and received, despite other sources of help that are aimed at increasing personal autonomy and freedom. 

In a way, mutual help-giving also became a way for the participants to be autonomous and free as a couple, 

from a life already marked with formal help. 

 

Further, what these interviews did was show how people with disabilities could be active and voluntary 

givers of informal care. Though the study was on spousal help and care, one of the most significant 

strengths of using conjoint interviewing for this particular study was that it allowed me to make 

mutuality the premise of the interview, rather than pre-supposing individual roles as carers or care 

receivers. If individual interviews or focus groups had been used, this might have required me to frame 

the participants in one role or the other, consequently excluding the other partner as a possible provider 

of spousal help. Through conjoint interviewing, the partners could instead cast themselves in either role 

or both roles simultaneously. The method also allowed the participants to be described as concurrent 

actors in the relationship and as providers of help and care for one’s partner, even if they may not be 

carers in the traditional sense. Even the performative aspect of the conjoint interviews showed how care 

could have different dimensions, which might not have appeared in individual or focus group interviews. 



110 

 

The many examples of everyday helping begged the question of what actions one should call “caring” 

and what “naturally” occurs in a spousal relationship, since these different examples of help and support 

were nevertheless important in the couple’s everyday lives. In this way, one could clearly see how the use 

of conjoint interviews not only produced unique material but also produced an analysis that can 

problematize traditional care discourses, include a discussion of disabled people as carers, and emphasize 

the relational dimensions of caring with a disability. 

 

Some considerations about the method 

Because conjoint interviews produce a certain kind of data that urges a researcher to look at it in specific 

ways, it is important to note not only the possibilities but the limitations of this interview method. With 

regards to the study, it should be remembered that the nine couples were informed about being 

interviewed conjointly before they agreed to participate. As in other studies where the informants 

themselves choose to be included, there might be a participant bias, with couples that see themselves in 

smooth-going relationships being more likely to participate in a conjoint interview study. If this is so, it 

explains the positive tone in many of the interviews. Rather than drawing too general conclusions from 

this study then, it is more fruitful to consider it as a contribution to an alternative discussion of spousal 

care – one that includes disabled people as mutual givers and receivers of informal care. 

 

The method also has other general limitations. Criticisms of dyadic interviewing raise the issues of lack of 

spontaneity, disclosure of information and keeping secrets between participants. There is also reason to 

believe that couples are not too keen to talk about problematic or stressful issues with their partner 

present (see Morris, 2001; Forbat & Henderson, 2003; Ben-Ari & Lavee, 2007; Taylor & de Vocht, 2011). 

Consequently, when studying spousal caregiving through conjoint interviews, one should be aware that 

aspects of spousal burden and conflicts could be underplayed. Also, despite the focus on mutuality, the 

researcher cannot take for granted that the partners are equal in the interview situation. One must 

therefore try to be sensitive to and acknowledge possible imbalances of power. This is an important point 

since the presence of the significant other in the interview situation need not be neutral. This is also true in 

the study, despite the interaction facilitating “natural” examples of help-giving in everyday life. For 

instance, it would not have been appropriate for Krister (who had communication problems) to take up 

any problems about Lucia when she had to, on many occasions, repeat verbatim what he was saying. It 

would also have been inappropriate for Lucia to criticize Krister, given his subordinate position in the 

conversation. On the other hand, echoing Heaphy and Einarsdottir (2012), the imbalance of power in their 

conversation could also be seen in terms of collaboration and can be explored within the context of the 

narrative to generate insights, rather than seeing the interaction as a problem to be solved. 

 

Another important point to consider with this method is what may be thought of as a circular logic 

between data generation and interpretation. That is, when one explicitly asks a couple about mutual care 

and support, stories of “we-ness” tend to emerge which in turn encourages interpretations about 

mutuality. The relationship between data and interpretation is explicit with this method, but actually 

defines all qualitative research. As Reissman (1993) maintains, interview methods shape the narrative 

form and, in turn, the researcher’s story about what the narratives might signify. Nevertheless, though the 

data and its possible interpretations are of a certain nature, this need not be a disadvantage for the 

emerging results. Dyadic data, through its unique characteristics, also generates other insights as a 

consequence, as was pointed out in previous examples. One could also look at the data produced as 

specific narratives about mutual care that emerge from a different starting point or premise than individual 

interviews. This means, consequently, that conjoint interviewing may be less suitable for studying other 

dimensions of caregiving. Individual interviews or focus groups with carers or spouses may for instance 

be more appropriate if one wishes to explore individual dimensions of caregiving such as spousal burden 



111 

 

or the subjective experience of the care received. However, if the relationship and relational dimensions 

are of interest to the study, conjoint interviews may be all the more fruitful. 

 

Acknowledgements 

The study on which this article is based is part of the research program Forms of Care in Later Life: Agency, 

Place, Time and Life Course, at the National Institute for the Study of Ageing and Later Life (NISAL), 

Linköping University, Sweden. The program was financed by FAS (now Forte, Swedish Research Council 

for Health, Working Life and Welfare, Dnr 2006-1621). The author would like to thank Kristian Gjessing 

for reading and commenting on previous drafts of this manuscript and for proofreading the final version. 

 

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Author 

Cristina Joy Torgé is a PhD candidate at the National Institute for the Study of Ageing and Later Life 

(NISAL), in Linköping University, Sweden. Email: cristina.joy.torge@liu.se