Appraising the quality of qualitative research
Section snippets
Background
Narratives of womens’ experiences of midwifery care have been published since at least the 1960s (Kitzinger, 1962); however, the first explicitly research-based account of the nature of English midwifery practice was not completed until 1983 (Kirkham, 1983). Over the past 2 decades, qualitative research in maternity care has gained increasing exposure and credibility. This reflects a growing interest in this paradigm in the health services, as it sheds light on the environment and culture of
Literature review
In the process of scoping this issue, we came across a number of checklists for appraising qualitative research. This occurred through an iterative process akin to Bates’ (1989) ‘berrypicking’ model, rather than through a systematic search of the literature. This approach reflects ‘real world’ search patterns, where the retrieval of one paper leads to others. Four different checklists were found in journals (Popay and Rogers, 1998; Mays and Pope, 2000; Yardley, 2000; Cesario et al., 2002).
Discussion
The utility of qualitative research has been the subject of considerable debate. The tenor of this debate has frequently touched on the struggle to measure up to positivist constructs of what constitutes good research. For example, Sandelowski and Barroso (2002) note the apologetic stance some authors of qualitative studies take when describing small sample size as a limitation to the applicability of their findings. However, a preoccupation with generalisability, and thus with the quality
Conclusion
Within health circles, interest in qualitative research is increasing. The trend is driven by the acknowledged complexity of many health-care interventions, the emphasis on client experience, and the focus on changing clinicians’ practice. As the interest is translated into funding more studies, concern is being expressed about how to appraise these studies and, ultimately, what their findings mean for health-care practice. Although the literature on appraisal of qualitative research is
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