Qualitative research in general practice: the need for specific quality standards in reporting qualitative studies

Annick Nonneman, Manon De Montigny, Yasmin Abid, Cécile Ponsar, Thérèse Leroy, Michel De Jonghe

Keywords: Qualitative research design, quality standards, guidelines, general practice

Background:

For several years, general practice (GP) has been appropriating qualitative methods from the field of human and social sciences to develop research. In contrast to quantitative research, at the root of evidence-based medicine, qualitative research in GP is still in its early stages.
Incorporating qualitative findings into the "evidence-based" appears to be an opportunity given the complex, dynamic and uncertain nature of cases in general practice. This contextualisation remains largely insufficient due to the lack of adequate evaluation tools for the quality of scientific production.

Research questions:

What is the most appropriate critical reading framework for assessing the quality criteria of qualitative studies in general practice?

Method:

1. Literature review in the PubMed, Embase and Cairn databases of articles discussing quality in qualitative research based on: (1) qualitative research design; (2) quality standards (3) social and human sciences, (4) published after 2014.
2. Critical comparative analysis of the 3 validated publication standards COREQ, SRQR and RATS (Equator network) versus the quality standards of a qualitative study as referenced in the literature review.

Results:

The comparative analysis and the literature review identified quality standards for assessing qualitative studies.
None of the three publication standards were 100% in accordance with the quality standards reported in the referenced literature. SRQR is the most consistent publication standard with quality criteria identified in the literature. COREQ is limited to focus groups and interviews, seeks to quantify, requires little justifications, and establishes few connections between key elements. RATS supplements SRQR with some relevant quality standards.

Conclusions:

The literature review and critical comparative analysis shows that quality of qualitative research in GP can be difficult to evaluate because of incomplete and non-specific reporting of key elements in the validated publication standards.
A new evaluation framework for qualitative scientific production in GP could be proposed on the basis of these results.

Points for discussion:

Strengths and weaknesses of the framework as an evaluation tool, as it has to encompass the diversity of qualitative studies, are that it respects complex philosophical underpinnings of particular methodologies, and it is pragmatic.

Transferability of the framework as an assessment tool to other academic works in health sciences (nursing, physiotherapy, pharmacy, psychology).

The new evaluation framework could be used to support the research design of an advanced master's thesis work.

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