Qualitative methods in health research

Qualitative methods have much to offer those studying health care and health services. However, because these methods have traditionally been employed in the social sciences, they may be unfamiliar to health care professionals and researchers with a biomedical or natural science background. Indeed, qualitative methods may seem alien alongside the experimental and observational quantitative methods used in clinical, biological and epidemiological research. Misunderstandings about the nature of qualitative methods and their uses have caused qualitative research to be labelled ‘unscientific’, difficult to replicate or as little more than anecdote, personal impression or conjecture. The first edition of this book, and the series of papers in the British Medical Journal on which the book was initially based, deliberately set out to counter this view. The growing interest in qualitative methods in health research, and their increasing acceptance in clinical and biomedical arenas, in the 10 years since the book was first published, suggest that such misunderstandings may be diminishing. The purpose of this book has therefore altered subtly. Its main aim continues to be to introduce the main qualitative methods available for the study of health and health care, and to show how qualitative research can be employed appropriately and fruitfully to answer some of the increasingly complex questions confronting researchers. In addition, the book considers the ethics of qualitative research and how to assess its quality and looks at the application of qualitative methods within different styles of researchand in th e emerging area of research synthesis.