The reason and rhyme of qualitative research: why, when, and how to use qualitative methods in the study of adolescent health.

Many of the life experiences, understandings, and beliefs that place young people’s health at risk are difficult to quantify, yet adolescent health providers must assess and evaluate them. Qualitative research offers tools to examine these powerful forces at work in young lives. It looks beyond diagnostic outcomes to explore context and motivation, the “how” and the “why” of adolescent health risk behaviors. Although qualitative methods are relatively new to medical and public health research, clinicians use qualitative techniques every day: observing, actively interviewing, receptively listening, evaluating narratives, integrating data from diverse sources while recognizing inherent biases, and analyzing the information in a flexible and critical manner. This intuitive use of qualitative techniques informs clinicians how to vary their interactions subtly to best meet the differing needs of their patients. This “art of medicine” combined with biomedical science allows clinicians to move beyond medical problem solving and become healers. The goal of all research is to enhance a knowledge base. By furthering clinicians’ understanding of human factors that influence adolescent health, including social context and the patient perspective, qualitative research (1–4) enhances the type of knowledge that allows us to more effectively prevent unhealthy behaviors and, ultimately, to heal disease.

[1]  A. Peshkin.  In Search of Subjectivity—One's Own , 1988 .

[2]  D. Silverman.  Interpreting Qualitative Data , 1993 .

[3]  D. Polkinghorne.  Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences , 2010 .

[4]  R. Chalfen,et al.  Showing and telling asthma: Children teaching physicians with visual narrative , 1999 .

[5]  Lillian B. Rubin.  Worlds Of Pain: Life In The Working-class Family , 1976 .

[6]  T S Inui.  The virtue of qualitative and quantitative research. , 1996, Annals of internal medicine.

[7]  S. Fordham,et al.  Blacked Out: Dilemmas of Race, Identity, and Success at Capital High , 1996 .

[8]  N. Denzin,et al.  Handbook of Qualitative Research , 1994 .

[9]  Edward F. McQuarrie,et al.  Focus Groups: Theory and Practice , 1991 .

[10]  K C Stange,et al.  Integrating qualitative and quantitative research methods. , 1989, Family medicine.

[11]  W. Thomas,et al.  The Unadjusted Girl , 1924 .

[12]  M. Mead.  --From the South seas : studies of adolescence and sex in primitive societies , 1939 .

[13]  C. Riessman,et al.  Qualitative Studies in Social Work Research , 1993 .

[14]  J M Morse,et al.  Approaches to qualitative-quantitative methodological triangulation. , 1991, Nursing research.

[15]  G. Konopka.  The adolescent girl in conflict , 1966 .

[16]  P. Reason,et al.  Human inquiry : a sourcebook of new paradigm research , 1983 .

[17]  Corrine Glesne,et al.  Becoming Qualitative Researchers: An Introduction , 1991 .

[18]  R Jessor,et al.  Risk behavior in adolescence: a psychosocial framework for understanding and action. , 1991, The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

[19]  A. Kleinman,et al.  The Relevance of social science for medicine , 1981 .

[20]  M. Kendall,et al.  The Logic of Scientific Discovery. , 1959 .

[21]  M. Miles,et al.  Data management and analysis methods. , 1994 .

[22]  K. Popper,et al.  The Logic of Scientific Discovery , 1960 .

[23]  K R Ginsburg,et al.  Factors affecting the decision to seek health care: the voice of adolescents. , 1997, Pediatrics.

[24]  N. Denzin.  The research act: A theoretical introduction to sociological methods , 1977 .

[25]  V. Bergum.  Being a Phenomenological Researcher , 1991 .

[26]  S. Eyre.  The vernacular term interview: eliciting social knowledge related to sex among adolescents. , 1997, Journal of adolescence.

[27]  Bingham Ct.  The meaning of symptoms. , 1956 .

[28]  A. Strauss.  Basics Of Qualitative Research , 1992 .

[29]  A. Strauss,et al.  Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. , 1992 .

[30]  A Steckler,et al.  Toward Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: An Introduction , 1992, Health education quarterly.

[31]  Lisa Maher,et al.  Gender, Power, and Alternative Living Arrangements in the Inner-City Crack Culture , 1996 .

[32]  P J Flanagan,et al.  Adolescent development and transitions to motherhood. , 1995, Pediatrics.

[33]  C. Moore.  Group Techniques for Idea Building , 1987 .

[34]  Video intervention/prevention assessment (VIA): An innovative methodology for understanding the adolescent illness experience , 1998 .

[35]  J. Morse,et al.  Qualitative Research Methods for Health Professionals , 1995 .

[36]  M. Mead,et al.  Coming of Age in Samoa , 1929 .

[37]  John S. Santelli,et al.  Guidelines for Adolescent Health Research :A Position Paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine , 1995 .

[38]  Catherine C. Marshall,et al.  Designing Qualitative Research , 1996 .

[39]  S. Emans,et al.  Aggressors or Victims: Gender and Race in Music Video Violence , 1998, Pediatrics.

[40]  Peter Reason,et al.  Participation in human inquiry , 1994 .

[41]  Matthew B. Miles,et al.  Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook , 1994 .

[42]  J. Kirk,et al.  Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research , 1985 .

[43]  Richard A. Krueger,et al.  Focus groups : a practical guide for applied research / by Richard A. Krueger , 1989 .

[44]  Harry F. Wolcott,et al.  Transforming Qualitative Data: Description, Analysis, and Interpretation , 1996 .

[45]  H. Waitzkin,et al.  On Studying the Discourse of Medical Encounters: A Critique of Quantitative and Qualitative Methods and a Proposal for Reasonable Compromise , 1990, Medical care.

[46]  C. Geertz.  Thick Description: Towards an Interpretive Theory of Culture , 1973 .

[47]  B. Crabtree,et al.  A qualitative approach to primary care research: the long interview. , 1991, Family medicine.

[48]  E. J. Porter.  The qualitative-quantitative dualism. , 1989, Image--the journal of nursing scholarship.

[49]  M. Mead.  Review: Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization , 1962 .

[50]  C. Geertz,et al.  The Interpretation of Cultures , 1973 .

[51]  M. Connors.  Risk perception, risk taking and risk management among intravenous drug users: implications for AIDS prevention. , 1992, Social science & medicine.

[52]  D. Silverman.  Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction , 1994 .

[53]  B. Good,et al.  The Meaning of Symptoms: A Cultural Hermeneutic Model for Clinical Practice , 1981 .

[54]  N. Denzin,et al.  The Research Act , 1978 .

[55]  C. Pope,et al.  Qualitative Research: Reaching the parts other methods cannot reach: an introduction to qualitative methods in health and health services research , 1995 .

[56]  C. Webb,et al.  Qualitative nursing research , 1992 .

[57]  J. Pinto-Martin,et al.  Teen father participation in child rearing: family perspectives. , 1996, The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

[58]  Kenwyn K. Smith,et al.  The Self in Social Inquiry: Researching Methods , 1988 .

[59]  C. Sargent,et al.  Medical Anthropology: Contemporary Theory and Method , 1996 .

[60]  A. Cnaan,et al.  Adolescents' perceptions of factors affecting their decisions to seek health care. , 1995, JAMA.

[61]  Anna De Fina,et al.  The ethnographic interview , 2019, The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography.