Advanced issues in qualitative research in healthcare

Background and rationale With a focus on the social world, qualitative research allows to study health phenomena from the perspective of those experiencing them. While qualitative methods have the great potential for developing new ideas and challenging old ones, they lack the statistical technology that quantitative researchers can rely on. This often results in qualitative researchers falling short of maximizing the potentials of their data collection techniques, questioning their data sufficiently or integrating new knowledge into existing one.Overall objectives and specific aimsThe overall goal of this workshop is to bring together experts in qualitative research methods to discuss and reflect on the most important challenges faced by researchers who mainly employ, or would like to employ, qualitative methods in the healthcare field. Specifically, the workshop aims at addressing the following topics: ensuring the highest methodological rigour, advancing the use of participatory action research and summarizing qualitative evidence to inform policy and practice. Furthermore, the workshop aims at promoting collaboration between USI and other UK universities, where the majority of qualitative research is conducted to start research collaborations. Qualitative methods are not so commonly used and, when they are, they are not used the way they should. This workshop will be helpful to sensitize researchers at USI and in other Swiss universities about the importance of ensuring the quality. Teach master’s students at USI more advance topics in qualitative research.MethodsWe will reach the main goal and its specific objectives through a 1.5-day workshop where three speakers (Prof. Peter Salmon, Dr. Evi Germeni, and Dr. Julia Frost) will discuss three different themes related to qualitative research methods in healthcare, namely rigour, mixed-method and participatory approaches, and meta-synthesis. The format of the workshop will be interactive so that the workshop participants will have a chance to discuss their own challenges in relation to past, current or future qualitative studies. Moreover, this workshop will represent a fertile ground for sparking new collaborations between the research group I currently work with and the three invited speakers, with whom we share similar research interests in terms of both methodological approaches and themes.Expected results Current Master and PhD students from USI and other Swiss universities will have a chance to deeply enrich their knowledge on qualitative research methods and to reflect on the main methodological and conceptual issues involved in planning, conducting and summarizing qualitative studies.Furthermore, during the two days of the workshop the research group I work with and I will exchange ideas with the speakers and plan novel research and teaching activities that will – at the same time – reflect our mutual interests and meet the highest standards in qualitative research that this workshop aims at making attendees aware of. These will include at least one primary qualitative study and a qualitative meta-synthesis.Impact for the fieldMost qualitative method courses taught at Bachelor and Master level focus on the research process and the different analytical techniques that can be employed with different designs and approaches, often leaving little space to a reflection about what rigour means, the integration of more quantitative methods, or the use of alternative, less known methodological approaches. This workshop will represent an opportunity to reflect about these issues at an advanced level with well-known experts and to improve the quality of qualitative health-related studies in Switzerland and, in particular, in the Canton of Ticino.