| Title |
Meta-ethnography 25 years on: challenges and insights for synthesising a large number of qualitative studies
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
BMC Medical Research Methodology, June 2014
|
| DOI | 10.1186/1471-2288-14-80 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Francine Toye, Kate Seers, Nick Allcock, Michelle Briggs, Eloise Carr, Karen Barker |
| Abstract |
Studies that systematically search for and synthesise qualitative research are becoming more evident in health care, and they can make an important contribution to patient care. Our team was funded to complete a meta-ethnography of patients' experience of chronic musculoskeletal pain. It has been 25 years since Noblit and Hare published their core text on meta-ethnography, and the current health research environment brings additional challenges to researchers aiming to synthesise qualitative research. Noblit and Hare propose seven stages of meta-ethnography which take the researcher from formulating a research idea to expressing the findings. These stages are not discrete but form part of an iterative research process. We aimed to build on the methods of Noblit and Hare and explore the challenges of including a large number of qualitative studies into a qualitative systematic review. These challenges hinge upon epistemological and practical issues to be considered alongside expectations about what determines high quality research. This paper describes our method and explores these challenges. Central to our method was the process of collaborative interpretation of concepts and the decision to exclude original material where we could not decipher a concept. We use excerpts from our research team's reflexive statements to illustrate the development of our methods. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 15 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 4 | 27% |
| Canada | 3 | 20% |
| South Africa | 1 | 7% |
| Italy | 1 | 7% |
| Spain | 1 | 7% |
| Unknown | 5 | 33% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 8 | 53% |
| Scientists | 3 | 20% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 2 | 13% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 2 | 13% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 280 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 4 | 1% |
| Germany | 1 | <1% |
| France | 1 | <1% |
| Sweden | 1 | <1% |
| New Zealand | 1 | <1% |
| Spain | 1 | <1% |
| United States | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 270 | 96% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 56 | 20% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 48 | 17% |
| Researcher | 36 | 13% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 23 | 8% |
| Student > Bachelor | 17 | 6% |
| Other | 41 | 15% |
| Unknown | 59 | 21% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Social Sciences | 45 | 16% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 41 | 15% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 36 | 13% |
| Psychology | 33 | 12% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 11 | 4% |
| Other | 42 | 15% |
| Unknown | 72 | 26% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 July 2021.
All research outputs
#3,349,691
of 24,272,486 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medical Research Methodology
#518
of 2,155 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#32,869
of 232,835 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medical Research Methodology
#8
of 31 outputs
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