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Health research aims to improve people’s health by understanding the best ways to diagnose and treat conditions, and understand people’s responses to health problems and health promotion initiatives. Quantitative research, and more specifically randomised controlled trials (RCTs), aims to establish if an intervention works, for example testing the effectiveness of a new drug, using statistical analysis. In contrast, qualitative research focuses on understanding a situation, for example people’s experiences, perspectives and behaviours. Qualitative research can enhance RCTs by ensuring a more complete understanding of the factors that influence the acceptability of a new intervention and how it might be implemented in practice. A previous article in this series outlined how process evaluation embedded within RCTs can help understand how and why an intervention works.
Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is a widely recognised and well-established method of qualitative inquiry designed to explore personal experience in detail, focusing on participants’ understandings and sense-making.
IPA was developed in the mid-1990s by Jonathan Smith and emerged out of health psychology, and since the early 2000s has increasingly been adopted by nursing and health researchers more generally. At the time of writing, a Google Scholar search of the terms ‘interpretative phenomenological analysis’ and ‘nursing’ yielded more than 35 000 results. IPA is primarily interested in undertaking...
For many decades, nurses have been expected to base their practice on up-to-date, research-derived evidence, melded with knowledge from nursing theory, experience—our own and others—and innovating in practice. This composite, complex evidence base is passed on through generations of nurses both formally, through educational opportunities and our own readings, and informally through the stories we tell of our practice. These nursing narratives encompass and connect the multiple levels at which nurses work—alongside a person and their families and carers, within the structures of healthcare and social-care organisations and in policymaking settings. Essentially, narratives enable compelling and memorable links to be drawn between research, theory and experience, creating the certainty and confidence we need to work effectively within our very different practice environments. Any turbulence in practice, deficiency in the evidence base or challenge to our ability to pass on our narratives is likely to cause ambiguity and anxiety and...
Menopause has lately been described as a ‘hot topic’.
This article on realist reviews is the second in a four-part series on realist research.
Realist reviews (or realist evidence syntheses) are a theory-building, interpretative approach to evidence synthesis. Realist reviews aim to go beyond seeking whether interventions work (ie, are effective), to generating explanations as to...
While artificial intelligence (AI) was first developed in the late 1950s
This article is the first in a series exploring realist research, a methodological approach well suited to the complexity of nursing practice. Unlike traditional approaches such as randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and systematic reviews, which focus on whether interventions work, realist research examines how and why interventions work when implemented in specific groups; reflecting the individualised care nurses provide. By introducing the key concepts of realist research, this article highlights its relevance to nursing and lays the groundwork for using realist research to drive meaningful improvements in healthcare.
Realist research offers a unique lens to examine the complexity of healthcare delivery. While traditional research methods often seek to determine if interventions work or not in controlled environments, realist research seeks to explain how, why, for whom and under what circumstances interventions succeed—or fail—in real-world settings.
Critically evaluating the evidence, in particular research evidence, which underpins practice, is central to quality care and service improvements. Systematically appraising research includes assessing the rigour with which methods were undertaken and factors that may have biased findings. This article will outline what bias means in relation to research, why it is important to consider bias when appraising research and describe common types of bias across research processes. We will also offer strategies that researchers can undertake to minimise bias.
The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) describes bias in research as ‘systematic errors that can occur at any stage of the research process’ and can have a ‘significant impact on the reliability and validity of the findings’ that may lead to a distortion of the conclusions.
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