The use of focus groups in pediatric and adolescent research.

Through this past decade, health care research has focused on clinical trials and establishing intervention versus control group research to improve the health of children and adolescents. Many of these clinical intervention trials have not demonstrated significantly improved health for these persons. One possible reason for the failure to demonstrate improved health is that the young persons' perspective is lacking. Focus group method of data collection is an excellent vehicle to help gain the young person's perspective on a variety of issues related to health and wellness. Including the young person's perspective when designing a program may encourage this person to participate in the new initiative, which would ultimately improve the health of children and adolescents to a greater degree than when their perspective is not taken into account. This article discusses the use of focus groups as an important part of the research process in pediatric and adolescent populations.