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A scoping review of Q-methodology in healthcare research

BACKGROUND: Q-methodology is an approach to studying complex issues of human ‘subjectivity’. Although this approach was developed in the early twentieth century, the value of Q-methodology in healthcare was not recognised until relatively recently. The aim of this review was to scope the empirical h...

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Autores principales: Churruca, Kate, Ludlow, Kristiana, Wu, Wendy, Gibbons, Kate, Nguyen, Hoa Mi, Ellis, Louise A., Braithwaite, Jeffrey
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8215808/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34154566
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-021-01309-7
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author Churruca, Kate
Ludlow, Kristiana
Wu, Wendy
Gibbons, Kate
Nguyen, Hoa Mi
Ellis, Louise A.
Braithwaite, Jeffrey
author_facet Churruca, Kate
Ludlow, Kristiana
Wu, Wendy
Gibbons, Kate
Nguyen, Hoa Mi
Ellis, Louise A.
Braithwaite, Jeffrey
author_sort Churruca, Kate
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Q-methodology is an approach to studying complex issues of human ‘subjectivity’. Although this approach was developed in the early twentieth century, the value of Q-methodology in healthcare was not recognised until relatively recently. The aim of this review was to scope the empirical healthcare literature to examine the extent to which Q-methodology has been utilised in healthcare over time, including how it has been used and for what purposes. METHODS: A search of three electronic databases (Scopus, EBSCO-CINAHL Complete, Medline) was conducted. No date restriction was applied. A title and abstract review, followed by a full-text review, was conducted by a team of five reviewers. Included articles were English-language, peer-reviewed journal articles that used Q-methodology (both Q-sorting and inverted factor analysis) in healthcare settings. The following data items were extracted into a purpose-designed Excel spreadsheet: study details (e.g., setting, country, year), reasons for using Q-methodology, healthcare topic area, participants (type and number), materials (e.g., ranking anchors and Q-set), methods (e.g., development of the Q-set, analysis), study results, and study implications. Data synthesis was descriptive in nature and involved frequency counting, open coding and the organisation by data items. RESULTS: Of the 2,302 articles identified by the search, 289 studies were included in this review. We found evidence of increased use of Q-methodology in healthcare, particularly over the last 5 years. However, this research remains diffuse, spread across a large number of journals and topic areas. In a number of studies, we identified limitations in the reporting of methods, such as insufficient information on how authors derived their Q-set, what types of analyses they performed, and the amount of variance explained. CONCLUSIONS: Although Q-methodology is increasingly being adopted in healthcare research, it still appears to be relatively novel. This review highlight commonalities in how the method has been used, areas of application, and the potential value of the approach. To facilitate reporting of Q-methodological studies, we present a checklist of details that should be included for publication. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12874-021-01309-7.
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spelling pubmed-82158082021-06-23 A scoping review of Q-methodology in healthcare research Churruca, Kate Ludlow, Kristiana Wu, Wendy Gibbons, Kate Nguyen, Hoa Mi Ellis, Louise A. Braithwaite, Jeffrey BMC Med Res Methodol Research BACKGROUND: Q-methodology is an approach to studying complex issues of human ‘subjectivity’. Although this approach was developed in the early twentieth century, the value of Q-methodology in healthcare was not recognised until relatively recently. The aim of this review was to scope the empirical healthcare literature to examine the extent to which Q-methodology has been utilised in healthcare over time, including how it has been used and for what purposes. METHODS: A search of three electronic databases (Scopus, EBSCO-CINAHL Complete, Medline) was conducted. No date restriction was applied. A title and abstract review, followed by a full-text review, was conducted by a team of five reviewers. Included articles were English-language, peer-reviewed journal articles that used Q-methodology (both Q-sorting and inverted factor analysis) in healthcare settings. The following data items were extracted into a purpose-designed Excel spreadsheet: study details (e.g., setting, country, year), reasons for using Q-methodology, healthcare topic area, participants (type and number), materials (e.g., ranking anchors and Q-set), methods (e.g., development of the Q-set, analysis), study results, and study implications. Data synthesis was descriptive in nature and involved frequency counting, open coding and the organisation by data items. RESULTS: Of the 2,302 articles identified by the search, 289 studies were included in this review. We found evidence of increased use of Q-methodology in healthcare, particularly over the last 5 years. However, this research remains diffuse, spread across a large number of journals and topic areas. In a number of studies, we identified limitations in the reporting of methods, such as insufficient information on how authors derived their Q-set, what types of analyses they performed, and the amount of variance explained. CONCLUSIONS: Although Q-methodology is increasingly being adopted in healthcare research, it still appears to be relatively novel. This review highlight commonalities in how the method has been used, areas of application, and the potential value of the approach. To facilitate reporting of Q-methodological studies, we present a checklist of details that should be included for publication. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12874-021-01309-7. BioMed Central 2021-06-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8215808/ /pubmed/34154566 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-021-01309-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Churruca, Kate
Ludlow, Kristiana
Wu, Wendy
Gibbons, Kate
Nguyen, Hoa Mi
Ellis, Louise A.
Braithwaite, Jeffrey
A scoping review of Q-methodology in healthcare research
title A scoping review of Q-methodology in healthcare research
title_full A scoping review of Q-methodology in healthcare research
title_fullStr A scoping review of Q-methodology in healthcare research
title_full_unstemmed A scoping review of Q-methodology in healthcare research
title_short A scoping review of Q-methodology in healthcare research
title_sort scoping review of q-methodology in healthcare research
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8215808/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34154566
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-021-01309-7
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