Research · Interview guide

Sector interview guide.

A draft guide for ambulance and NHS interviews in the Identity After the Uniform research programme. It keeps the same research question while making room for sector-specific language.

Safeguard before method

AURIS Institute is an education and research organisation. Taking part is not therapy, clinical treatment, medical care or crisis support. If your safety or daily functioning is affected, please use your usual clinical or occupational support routes, contact your GP or NHS 111, or call 999 in an emergency.

The guide is for research interviewing. It is not a clinical protocol, supervision tool, employer investigation or incident review.

Sector lens

Sector	Prompts to keep visible
Ambulance	Crew, control room, response pace, incident-to-home shift, public expectation, operational identity.
NHS	Team, ward or service identity, hierarchy, patient care, moral pressure, public expectation, professional continuity.
Both	Belonging, competence, usefulness, role loss, change over time, support that notices identity rather than only workload.

1. Opening and consent

Confirm the participant has read the participant information and understands the interview is voluntary.
Explain that they can pause, skip a question or stop the interview without giving a reason.
Ask them not to name patients, colleagues, crews, wards, incidents, locations or employers where that could identify someone.
Confirm whether the interview can be recorded for transcription and thematic coding.

2. Role and identity map

What role or roles have shaped your working identity most strongly?
When did the role start to feel like part of who you were, not only what you did?
Which words would you use for that identity in your own language?
What parts of that identity were recognised by people around you, and what parts were hidden?

3. Sector-specific identity anchors

For ambulance participants: explore crew, control room, response, urgency, public expectation and the shift between incident work and ordinary life.
For NHS participants: explore team, ward, service, hierarchy, patient contact, moral pressure, public expectation and the shift between professional role and ordinary life.
Ask what made the participant feel useful, trusted, competent or needed.
Ask what made the participant feel unseen, replaceable, constrained or changed.

4. Change points

What changed the relationship between you and the role?
Was the change sudden, gradual, repeated or only visible in hindsight?
Did the change involve leaving, absence, injury, redeployment, retirement, management, complaint, burnout, moral conflict, family pressure or something else?
What stayed continuous when the role changed, and what did not?

5. The AURIS framework prompts

Awareness: when did you first notice that something in your identity had shifted?
Understanding: what explanation made the most sense to you at the time?
Regulation: what helped you steady yourself when the shift felt difficult?
Identity: what parts of you remained, and what parts needed rebuilding?
Stability: what made life feel steadier, even if the role itself did not change?

6. Support, gaps and language

What support was offered, formally or informally?
What helped in practical terms but missed the identity part?
What language made sense, and what language made you switch off?
What would a service, employer, charity or practitioner need to understand before trying to help someone in your position?

7. Closing the interview

Ask what the participant wants the research to understand accurately.
Ask whether anything important has been missed.
Stop with grounding, not with the hardest material.
Repeat the support caveat and signpost if the participant is unsettled, at risk or needs care beyond the research conversation.

Participant routes

Recruitment pages sit separately so participants can read the version that matches their work context before asking for the participant information.

Ambulance interviews NHS interviews

For research enquiries, email enquiries@aurisidentity.com.

Following the research?

AURIS publishes the evidence base carefully, with clear limits on what each finding can and cannot show.

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