Qualitative Research Appraisal Paper

Qualitative Research Appraisal

Mounica Soma

Texas State University

Completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

HA 5301: Healthcare Administration Research Methods

October, 2015

Introduction:

The article titled “Family Physicians’ Perceptions on How They Deliver Cost-Effective Care” presented a study on the effects of family physician availability on healthcare costs and outcomes. Primary care family physicians play an important role in the provision of comprehensive, integrated, accessible healthcare services that satisfy the needs of patients (WHO, 2003). A review of Starfield et al (2005) has shown that health is better in areas with more primary care physicians, people

The study uses a qualitative approach, which is considered pertinent to this type of research, as the authors are trying to highlight the perceptions of family physicians concerning cost-effective care. The research does not make use of statistics; rather, it uses participants’ responses and their subjective experiences about the topic. The participants selected for the study were family physicians affiliated with the Residency Research Network of Texas (RRNeT), and were not given any incentives for participation. “Ethnography is an interpretive, iterative, open ended emergent learning process” (Whitehead, 2005, p. 4). The authors mentioned explicitly that the data was collected in semi-structured interview format, developed by investigators using the Spradley method of ethnography, and was conducted by medical students at affiliated residencies. Interviews are considered to be the mainstay of qualitative research (Jeanfreau, 2010). The interviews were audio-recorded, de-identified and transcribed, which exemplifies that the form of data collected was reliable, and independently verifiable. Ethics in research is of prime importance. The World Health Organization states that ethical consideration should be described in a research paper (WHO, 2011). Ethical issues have been

The authors made an effort to describe both contradictory data and divergent findings. They listed the two important themes that they believed have emerged from the data—“a characteristic set of attitudes and skills, and a thorough knowledge of the whole patient” (Young et al., 2013, p.313). The themes were sufficiently organized by sub-categorizing them into various headings with examples. The findings of the study were found to be consistent with other studies (Martin, 2004), and the themes were well substantiated by the findings. The study also illuminates the need for future research and application.

A detailed and precise list of all the journals, magazines, articles, and books that are used in the qualitative study should be included in the reference list at the end of the study, as this serves as a good source of additional information for the readers (Polit & Beck, 2006). All the journals and other media alluded to in the study are accurately referenced in the present article.

Negative