Qualitative - Nursing - Quantitative & Qualitative Articles

What is Qualitative Research?

Qualitative Research from the SAGE Encyclopedia of Theory in Psychology by Carla Willig
Qualitative research is an approach to research that is primarily concerned with studying the nature, quality, and meaning of human experience. It asks questions about how people make sense of their experiences, how people talk about what has happened to them and others, and how people experience, manage, and negotiate situations they find themselves in. Qualitative research is interested both in individual experiences and in the ways in which people experience themselves as part of a group. Qualitative data take the form of accounts or observations, and the findings are presented in the form of a discussion of the themes that emerged from the analysis. Numbers are very rarely used in qualitative research.

Entanglement and the Relevance of Method in Qualitative Research by Pamela G. Reed
"This brief article is an introduction to the feature article on self-reflection in interpretive phenomenology research. Self-reflection is discussed as a method that warrants more explicit description in the practice of qualitative research. Research does not occur in an epistemic vacuum. Despite researchers’ entanglement in the process of research and the fuzziness of the phenomenon under study, scientific methods, including that of self-reflection, enable nurse scientists to persevere in their study of human health experiences" (Reed, 2018, Abstract).
Papers that go beyond numbers (qualitative research) by Trisha Greenhalgh
"Qualitative researchers seek a deeper truth. They aim to study things in their natural setting, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them'[2], and they use a holistic perspective which preserves the complexities of human behaviour" [2]. (Greenhalgh, 2020, Chapter 12).
Qualitative evidence by Jane Noyes et al. from the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions
"A synthesis of qualitative evidence can inform understanding of how interventions work by: increasing understanding of a phenomenon of interest (e.g. women’s conceptualization of what good antenatal care looks like); identifying associations between the broader environment within which people live and the interventions that are implemented; increasing understanding of the values and attitudes toward, and experiences of, health conditions and interventions by those who implement or receive them; and providing a detailed understanding of the complexity of interventions and implementation, and their impacts and effects on different subgroups of people and the influence of individual and contextual characteristics within different contexts" (Noyes et al, 2019, Introduction).
The value of qualitative research by Liam Clarke
"This article describes the dual nature of nursing research. It describes how qualitative research can present the patient's experience in a way that quantitative research cannot, but warns against over-reliance on qualitative methods. The article critically summarises the ideas of the European philosophers on which qualitative research is based" (Clarke, 2004).
Engaging nursing students in qualitative research through hands-on participation by Hall et al.
The article focuses on undergraduate nursing students often view research as challenging and difficult to understand. Topics include student learning the processes of qualitative and quantitative research has compared with learning new clinical skills, active learning uses creative strategies to improve critical thinking, and learning the qualitative research process and has sparked an interest in using the methods for future areas of interest.

Sources

Clarke, L. (2004). The value of qualitative research. Nursing Standard, 18(52), 41+. https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.simmons.edu/apps/doc/A122410070/ITOF?u=mlin_b_simmcol&sid=ITOF&xid=acb3d5a5

Greenhalgh, T. (2019). Papers that go beyond numbers (qualitative research). In How to read a Paper : The basics of evidence-based medicine and healthcare. (Sixth ed., pp. 165-178). Wiley Blackwell.

Hall, K. C., Andries, C., & McNair, M. E. (2020). Engaging nursing students in qualitative research through hands-on participation. Journal of Nursing Education, 59(3), 177. https://doi-org.ezproxy.simmons.edu/10.3928/01484834-20200220-13

Noyes J, Booth A, Cargo M, Flemming K, Harden A, Harris J, Garside R, Hannes K, Pantoja T, Thomas J. Chapter 21: Qualitative evidence. In: Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cumpston M, Li T, Page MJ, Welch VA (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions version 6.0 (updated July 2019). Cochrane, 2019. Available from https://training.cochrane.org/handbook/

Reed, P. G. (2018). Entanglement and the relevance of method in qualitative research. Nursing Science Quarterly, 31(3), 243–244. https://doi-org.ezproxy.simmons.edu/10.1177/0894318418774927

Willig, C. (2016). Qualitative research. In L. H. Miller (Ed.), The Sage encyclopedia of theory in psychology. Sage Publications, Credo Reference.

Search for Qualitative

Here are some search examples you can use. Let us know if we can add a type of search link for you.

CINAHL

"Fibromyalgia" AND Quantitative
Keyword and method searched as subjects; from 2015-2020
"Palliative Care" AND "Qualitative Studies"
From 2015-2020
"Nurs* Perception" AND "Qualitative Studies"
From 2015-2018; Peer-Reviewed; Any Author is Nurse; in Nursing Journals

Medline

"Anxiety" AND Qualitative
Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) and method searched as subject; from 2015-2019; in Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals
"Operating Room" AND Qualitative
Method searched in titles; from 2015-2020; Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals;
"Transgender Patient*" AND Quantitative
From 2015-2019; Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals

PubMed

Blindness AND Qualitative
From 2015-2020; Nursing journals
Dementia AND Qualitative
From 2015-2020; Nursing journals
Hypertension AND Qualitative
From 2015-2020; Nursing journals

Identify Articles

Qualitative and Quantitative Studies

To find qualitative and quantitative studies, try adding one of these words/phrases to your search terms. The word "qualitative" or "quantitative" will sometimes appear in the title, abstract, or subject terms, but not always. Look at the methods section of the article to determine what type of study design was used.

-	Qualitative	Quantitative
Definition	Research that seeks to provide understanding of human experience, perceptions, motivations, intentions, and behaviors based on description and observation and utilizing a naturalistic interpretative approach to a subject and its contextual setting.	Research based on traditional scientific methods, which generates numerical data and usually seeks to establish causal relationships between two or more variables, using statistical methods to test the strength and significance of the relationships.
What's Involved	Observations described in words	Observations measured in numbers
Starting Point	A situation the researcher can observe	A testable hypothesis
Goals	Participants are comfortable with the researcher. They are honest and forthcoming, so that the researcher can make robust observations.	Others can repeat the findings of the study. Variables are defined and correlations between them are studied.
Drawbacks	If the researcher is biased, or is expecting to find certain results, it can be difficult to make completely objective observations.	Researchers may be so careful about measurement methods that they do not make connections to a greater context.
Some Methods	Interview, Focused group, Observation, Ethnography, Grounded Theory	Survey, Randomized controlled trial, Clinical trial, Experimental Statistics

From A Dictionary of Nursing

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Nursing - Quantitative & Qualitative Articles: Qualitative