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Quality assurance of qualitative research: a review of the discourse

BACKGROUND: Increasing demand for qualitative research within global health has emerged alongside increasing demand for demonstration of quality of research, in line with the evidence-based model of medicine. In quantitative health sciences research, in particular clinical trials, there exist clear...

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Autores principales: Reynolds, Joanna, Kizito, James, Ezumah, Nkoli, Mangesho, Peter, Allen, Elizabeth, Chandler, Clare
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3267652/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22182674
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4505-9-43
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author Reynolds, Joanna
Kizito, James
Ezumah, Nkoli
Mangesho, Peter
Allen, Elizabeth
Chandler, Clare
author_facet Reynolds, Joanna
Kizito, James
Ezumah, Nkoli
Mangesho, Peter
Allen, Elizabeth
Chandler, Clare
author_sort Reynolds, Joanna
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Increasing demand for qualitative research within global health has emerged alongside increasing demand for demonstration of quality of research, in line with the evidence-based model of medicine. In quantitative health sciences research, in particular clinical trials, there exist clear and widely-recognised guidelines for conducting quality assurance of research. However, no comparable guidelines exist for qualitative research and although there are long-standing debates on what constitutes 'quality' in qualitative research, the concept of 'quality assurance' has not been explored widely. In acknowledgement of this gap, we sought to review discourses around quality assurance of qualitative research, as a first step towards developing guidance. METHODS: A range of databases, journals and grey literature sources were searched, and papers were included if they explicitly addressed quality assurance within a qualitative paradigm. A meta-narrative approach was used to review and synthesise the literature. RESULTS: Among the 37 papers included in the review, two dominant narratives were interpreted from the literature, reflecting contrasting approaches to quality assurance. The first focuses on demonstrating quality within research outputs; the second focuses on principles for quality practice throughout the research process. The second narrative appears to offer an approach to quality assurance that befits the values of qualitative research, emphasising the need to consider quality throughout the research process. CONCLUSIONS: The paper identifies the strengths of the approaches represented in each narrative and recommend these are brought together in the development of a flexible framework to help qualitative researchers to define, apply and demonstrate principles of quality in their research.
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spelling pubmed-32676522012-01-28 Quality assurance of qualitative research: a review of the discourse Reynolds, Joanna Kizito, James Ezumah, Nkoli Mangesho, Peter Allen, Elizabeth Chandler, Clare Health Res Policy Syst Research BACKGROUND: Increasing demand for qualitative research within global health has emerged alongside increasing demand for demonstration of quality of research, in line with the evidence-based model of medicine. In quantitative health sciences research, in particular clinical trials, there exist clear and widely-recognised guidelines for conducting quality assurance of research. However, no comparable guidelines exist for qualitative research and although there are long-standing debates on what constitutes 'quality' in qualitative research, the concept of 'quality assurance' has not been explored widely. In acknowledgement of this gap, we sought to review discourses around quality assurance of qualitative research, as a first step towards developing guidance. METHODS: A range of databases, journals and grey literature sources were searched, and papers were included if they explicitly addressed quality assurance within a qualitative paradigm. A meta-narrative approach was used to review and synthesise the literature. RESULTS: Among the 37 papers included in the review, two dominant narratives were interpreted from the literature, reflecting contrasting approaches to quality assurance. The first focuses on demonstrating quality within research outputs; the second focuses on principles for quality practice throughout the research process. The second narrative appears to offer an approach to quality assurance that befits the values of qualitative research, emphasising the need to consider quality throughout the research process. CONCLUSIONS: The paper identifies the strengths of the approaches represented in each narrative and recommend these are brought together in the development of a flexible framework to help qualitative researchers to define, apply and demonstrate principles of quality in their research. BioMed Central 2011-12-19 /pmc/articles/PMC3267652/ /pubmed/22182674 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4505-9-43 Text en Copyright ©2011 Reynolds 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
Reynolds, Joanna
Kizito, James
Ezumah, Nkoli
Mangesho, Peter
Allen, Elizabeth
Chandler, Clare
Quality assurance of qualitative research: a review of the discourse
title Quality assurance of qualitative research: a review of the discourse
title_full Quality assurance of qualitative research: a review of the discourse
title_fullStr Quality assurance of qualitative research: a review of the discourse
title_full_unstemmed Quality assurance of qualitative research: a review of the discourse
title_short Quality assurance of qualitative research: a review of the discourse
title_sort quality assurance of qualitative research: a review of the discourse
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3267652/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22182674
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4505-9-43
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