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Worked examples of alternative methods for the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews
BACKGROUND: The inclusion of qualitative studies in systematic reviews poses methodological challenges. This paper presents worked examples of two methods of data synthesis (textual narrative and thematic), used in relation to one review, with the aim of enabling researchers to consider the strength...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2007
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1783856/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17224044 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-7-4 |
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author | Lucas, Patricia J Baird, Janis Arai, Lisa Law, Catherine Roberts, Helen M |
author_facet | Lucas, Patricia J Baird, Janis Arai, Lisa Law, Catherine Roberts, Helen M |
author_sort | Lucas, Patricia J |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The inclusion of qualitative studies in systematic reviews poses methodological challenges. This paper presents worked examples of two methods of data synthesis (textual narrative and thematic), used in relation to one review, with the aim of enabling researchers to consider the strength of different approaches. METHODS: A systematic review of lay perspectives of infant size and growth was conducted, locating 19 studies (including both qualitative and quantitative). The data extracted from these were synthesised using both a textual narrative and a thematic synthesis. RESULTS: The processes of both methods are presented, showing a stepwise progression to the final synthesis. Both methods led us to similar conclusions about lay views toward infant size and growth. Differences between methods lie in the way they dealt with study quality and heterogeneity. CONCLUSION: On the basis of the work reported here, we consider textual narrative and thematic synthesis have strengths and weaknesses in relation to different research questions. Thematic synthesis holds most potential for hypothesis generation, but may obscure heterogeneity and quality appraisal. Textual narrative synthesis is better able to describe the scope of existing research and account for the strength of evidence, but is less good at identifying commonality. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-1783856 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2007 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-17838562007-01-30 Worked examples of alternative methods for the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews Lucas, Patricia J Baird, Janis Arai, Lisa Law, Catherine Roberts, Helen M BMC Med Res Methodol Research Article BACKGROUND: The inclusion of qualitative studies in systematic reviews poses methodological challenges. This paper presents worked examples of two methods of data synthesis (textual narrative and thematic), used in relation to one review, with the aim of enabling researchers to consider the strength of different approaches. METHODS: A systematic review of lay perspectives of infant size and growth was conducted, locating 19 studies (including both qualitative and quantitative). The data extracted from these were synthesised using both a textual narrative and a thematic synthesis. RESULTS: The processes of both methods are presented, showing a stepwise progression to the final synthesis. Both methods led us to similar conclusions about lay views toward infant size and growth. Differences between methods lie in the way they dealt with study quality and heterogeneity. CONCLUSION: On the basis of the work reported here, we consider textual narrative and thematic synthesis have strengths and weaknesses in relation to different research questions. Thematic synthesis holds most potential for hypothesis generation, but may obscure heterogeneity and quality appraisal. Textual narrative synthesis is better able to describe the scope of existing research and account for the strength of evidence, but is less good at identifying commonality. BioMed Central 2007-01-15 /pmc/articles/PMC1783856/ /pubmed/17224044 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-7-4 Text en Copyright © 2007 Lucas et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Lucas, Patricia J Baird, Janis Arai, Lisa Law, Catherine Roberts, Helen M Worked examples of alternative methods for the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews |
title | Worked examples of alternative methods for the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews |
title_full | Worked examples of alternative methods for the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews |
title_fullStr | Worked examples of alternative methods for the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews |
title_full_unstemmed | Worked examples of alternative methods for the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews |
title_short | Worked examples of alternative methods for the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews |
title_sort | worked examples of alternative methods for the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1783856/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17224044 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-7-4 |
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