Abstract:
Findings from qualitative research may make valuable contributions to the evidence informing healthcare practice. Qualitative research methodologies and methods, however, are less familiar to health researchers and research consumers when compared with quantitative methods. Qualitative research reporting guidelines and their merit have been hotly debated for at least two decades. Herein I discuss two sets of qualitative research reporting guidelines endorsed by many high tiered health research journals: Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research and Standards for reporting qualitative research. Six aspects of the two sets of guidelines are compared. The first aspect is the focus of the guidelines. The latter five aspects are items included in the guidelines: reflexivity, participant sampling and saturation, data collection, member checking, and data analysis. Except for reflexivity, these items were selected for comparison as they include features of, or strategies to, enhance the rigor of qualitative research that are applicable within some but not all qualitative methodologies. Reflexivity, a central feature of rigor within all qualitative research, is discussed for its suboptimal representation in both sets of reporting guidelines. Without regular and critical review of reporting guidelines, efforts to promote the design, conduct, and reporting of rigorous qualitative health research to support evidence-informed practice may be undermined. Moreover, for qualitative research reporting guidelines to be useful, they must be applied appropriately and in a flexible manner by researchers and reviewers. This paper has implications for researchers, journal editors, reviewers, and research consumers.
摘要:
定性研究的结果可能为指导医疗保健实践的证据做出有价值的贡献。定性研究的方法论和方法,然而,与定量方法相比,健康研究人员和研究消费者不太熟悉。至少二十年来,定性研究报告指南及其优点一直在激烈争论。在这里,我讨论了两套由许多高级健康研究期刊认可的定性研究报告指南:报告定性研究的综合标准和报告定性研究的标准。比较了两套指南的六个方面。第一个方面是准则的重点。后五个方面是准则中包含的项目:反身性,参与者抽样和饱和度,数据收集,成员检查,和数据分析。除了反身性,选择这些项目进行比较,因为它们包括的功能,或者策略,加强定性研究的严谨性,这些定性研究适用于一些但不是所有的定性方法。自反性,所有定性研究中严谨的一个中心特征,讨论了其在两组报告指南中的次优表示。如果没有对报告准则进行定期和严格的审查,努力推广设计,行为,和报告严格的定性健康研究以支持循证实践可能会受到损害。此外,为了使定性研究报告指南有用,研究人员和审稿人必须以灵活的方式适当地应用它们。这篇论文对研究人员有启示,期刊编辑,审稿人,和研究消费者。