Qualitative Research in Healthcare

Reply to classmate’s discussion question below, 200-word minimum, citing 1 source. 

The discussion question is:

Discussion Question:

Describe the value of qualitative research in healthcare and its’ impact on clinical decision-making. Provide an example of how qualitative research may influence nursing practice or healthcare delivery.

Classmates response:

Qualitative research helps nurses to learn about patients experiences, and that knowledge and information can be used to improve interventions and care.  It helps nurses and other healthcare professionals to be able to understand how a patient experiences illness and health.  Qualitative research can include information gathered from interviews, questionnaires, observation and focus groups.  The data that is generated from qualitative research is generally in the form of words instead of numbers or statistics (Cypress, 2015).  While quantitative research provides statistical data, qualitative data provides real-life patient experiences.  Both of these types of data are an essential part of clinical decision making and evidenced based practice.

 Qualitative research is person-centered and holistic in nature and can help nurses to better understand patient preferences.  Every person has different needs, and using qualitative research helps nurses to be able to see and understand the needs of patients including their interpretations, understanding of things and what they truly need and want.  This allows nurses to gain different perspectives about patient care, and to discover new and improved interventions. 

A great example of qualitative research is the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey that is used to measure patient experiences with healthcare providers.  In hospice, we utilize this survey to measure the experience of the patients family after the patient has passed away.  The survey is sent out to decedents primary caregiver 30-60 days after the patients death.  This questionnaire contains 47 questions regarding their experience with hospice.  The questions are broken into the following categories: communication with family, getting timely help, treating patient with respect, emotional and spiritual support, help for pain and symptoms and training the family to care for the patient.  The caregiver is also asked to rate the hospice on a scale of 1-10 and to answer how likely they are to recommend the hospice agency to others.  The answers are based on the caregivers perceptions and experiences.  The data that is collected from these surveys is reported back to the individual hospice and is also publicly reported.  This qualitative research can have great influence on the way that hospices provide care to patients and their families, as the responses can help hospice agencies to understand what areas of care delivery may need improvement.  Also, with these scores being publicly reported, the data allows consumers to make educated decisions about the agency that they choose to provide end-of-life care for their loved ones. 

Reference

Cypress, B. (2015). The what, why, who, and how!  Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing, 34(6), 356-361.