Qualitative Research Critique

Qualitative Research Methods

Research Article Critique

By:

Eman Harb

November 14, 2018

Supervised by:

Prof. Lubna Abushaikha

  Introduction

The purpose of this assignment is to critically assess a study by Barimaniin, et al 2015, which aimed to investigate mothers’ perceived satisfaction with AC, PC and CHC, the researchers used a cross sectional and mixed method approach to guide their study, the study results show that all links in the chain of care are important for support of mothers during the first 2 weeks after childbirth. The following discussion will focus on criticizing the study purpose, design, conceptual/theoretical framework, ethical principle, sampling, data collection, data analysis and rigor of the study.

Purpose of Study

 The aims of this study were to investigate mothers’ perceived satisfaction with AC, PC and CHC, respectively, during the first 2 weeks after childbirth. The research question appears to be reasonable; as there was a gap in literature related to the mothers’ satisfaction and what kind of support they need from the “chain of care” to increase satisfaction of support and continuity during the first 2 weeks after childbirth. Moreover, there was explicit clarification of the study specific objectives.

Design

The researchers did not explicitly mention an appropriate explanation for using mixed method approach as a research design. In the current study the quantitative component of the study was the dominant; followed by the open-ended questions, it seems that the open-ended questions were used to explain the quantitative results. Indeed, the mixed method design it is not the appropriate design, if the survey asks open-ended question at the end of a questionnaire that is not considered as a mixed method.

Conceptual/theoretical Framework

The researchers did not explicitly mention appropriate conceptual/theoretical framework, moreover, there was no explanation for the lack of use the framework. However, the researcher used the Haggerty’s typology model of continuity of care to identify the subcategories themes.

Ethical Principles

         Ethical approval was gained from the Regional Research and Ethics Committee at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden. According to the authors, participants were chosen from the Stockholm County’s obstetrics database mothers who gave birth to a live baby between 9 and 15 March 2009. The process of gaining consent from the participant was not evident in the article, the researcher just mentioned the information latter without any details. Also, there was no evidence that the aim of the study explained in detail to the participants. The researchers did not provide adequate explanations of how they addressed the anonymity and confidentiality issue to protect the rights of the participants.

Sampling Strategy

Sampling strategy was not clearly stated. The researchers were not justifying the appropriateness of the technique. However, the researcher included all the accessible subject as a part of the sample, implicitly it was a convenient consecutive sampling technique, choosing the sample was appropriate in term of feasibility.  The recruitment procedure was clearly expressed, the statistical measurement of the sample size that is required to find the statistical differences between the mothers perceived satisfaction was not provided.  On the other hand, the eligibility criteria were not clarified appropriately, for example, some questionnaires were excluded either because of linguistic problems or because the child was under neonatal care, however, other exclusion criteria were not discussed. 

Data Collection Methods

Data were collected using a study-specific questionnaire that focused on mothers’ satisfaction with support from AC, PC and CHC during the first 2 weeks after childbirth. The questionnaire is composed of two parts, one quantitative consisted of nine questions ranged from one to five Likert’s scales; the second one is an open-ended question at the end of the survey. The steps of developing the questionnaire to fit the study were explained adequately. The researchers noted that they did two steps pilot test before data collection. The researchers gave an adequate explanation of the data collection procedure, they mentioned that questionnaires and information letters were sent to these 546 mothers 5–6 weeks after childbirth, together with a reply envelope. Seventeen letters were returned because of an incorrect address, of the 529 eligible mothers, 366 (69%) returned the questionnaires.