Discussion response 2
Read statement below. In your responses to peers, explain how mixed methods could strengthen qualitative research design.
Qualitative research is used to collect non-numerical data through different qualitative research approaches like observational methods, interviews, and case studies. In the article “A qualitative study of primary care physicians’ experiences with telemedicine during COVID-19”, researchers conducted a thematic analysis of the data to assess physician perspectives regarding the benefits and challenges of telemedicine “thematic analysis of qualitative data (i.e., an analysis of themes and patterns that emerge in the narrative content)” (Polit & Beck 2021, p. 168). Fifteen physicians, ten of which had never used telemedicine before COVID participated in 30-minute interviews by video conference between April 19 and June 28, 2020, and they concluded telemedicine visits offer new opportunities to improve the quality of patient care but noted changes to their interactions with patients.
One of the advantages of qualitative research is better researcher-participants interaction in methods like observation and interviews “During the data collection, the researchers interact with the participants directly such as it happens while data collection through interviews. Consequently, data collection is subjective and detailed” (Rahman, 2017, p. 104). A disadvantage of qualitative research, particularly in this study is participants were not chosen randomly, data could be one sided and the interpretation of the data may be complex “Qualitative research is a long hard road, with elusive data on one side and stringent requirements for analysis on the other” (Rahman, 2017, p. 105).
Trustworthiness in research is essential in knowing quality data has been obtained using standard like credibility, dependability, confirmability, transferability, and authenticity (Polit & Beck, 2021, p. 288). Trustworthiness in research allows nurses to create care plans that can be delivered with confidence and solid support for clinical decisions.
