Invited Review: Collecting Data through Dyadic Interviews: A Systematic Review

This article reports on a systematic review of journal articles that used dyadic interviews, also known as paired or joint interviews. The two basic formats for these interviews involve either interviewing participants separately or together, plus the additional possibility of using both formats in the same study. A search using the Social Science Citations Index yielded 471 articles that reported on such interviews. Of these articles, 38% reported interviewing the dyad members separately, 55% reported interviewing them together, and 7% used both formats. Over 40% reported on interviews of married couples or equivalents, and an additional 30% of the interviews involved other pairs of family members. Less common pairings involved coworkers, patients and providers, or friends. These results indicate an almost unanimous use of dyadic interviews based on pre-existing relationships and family members in particular, with only limited use as a broader interviewing method.