Guidance on Performing Focused Ethnographies with an Emphasis on Healthcare Research

Abstract

Focused ethnographies can have meaningful and useful application in primary care, community, or hospital healthcare practice, and are often used to determine ways to improve care and care processes. They can be pragmatic and efficient ways to capture data on a specific topic of importance to individual clinicians or clinical specialties. While many examples of focused ethnographies are available in the literature, there is a limited availability of guidance documents for conducting this research. This paper defines focused ethnographies, locates them within the ethnographic genre, justifies their use in healthcare research, and outlines the methodological processes including those related to sampling, data collection and maintaining rigour. It also identifies and provides a summary of some recent focused ethnographies conducted in healthcare research. While the emphasis is placed on healthcare research, focused ethnographies can be applicable to any discipline whenever there is a desire to explore specific cultural perspectives held by sub - groups of people within a context - specific and problem - focused framework.

The Encounters and Challenges of Ethnography as a Methodology in Health Research

“…ethnographies include intense data collection and data analysis, less time spent in the field, occasional participant observation, and technologically advanced (Higginbottom, Pillay, & Boadu, 2013;Muecke, 1994;Knoblauch, 2005). According to Cruz and Higginbottom (2013), focused ethnography is best suited to examine experiences within a culture or a subculture in particular settings, such as emergency departments, outpatient clinics, or trauma units, as opposed to investigating an entire hospital culture or a community.…”

“…According to Cruz and Higginbottom (2013), focused ethnography is best suited to examine experiences within a culture or a subculture in particular settings, such as emergency departments, outpatient clinics, or trauma units, as opposed to investigating an entire hospital culture or a community. Furthermore, focused ethnography is pragmatic in nature and offers a proficient means of collecting specific data that is well suited for health care professionals and care providers (Higginbottom et al, 2013;Muecke, 1994). In addition, focused ethnography emphasizes the understanding of participants' perspective (emic or insider perspective).…”

Exploring the Victimization of Syrian Refugees through the Human Security Model: An Ethnographic Approach

“…The field notes also included the first researcher’s reflections on their observations. Content analysis is regularly used as the data analysis technique for focused ethnography (Cruz & Higginbottom, 2013), and Higginbottom et al (2013: 6) suggest that a ‘gathering of researchers’ can provide the intra‐subjectivity needed for the rigorous analysis of data. They suggest that the analysis should move from descriptive coding to the discovery of patterns and themes.…”

More than just a task: intimate care delivery in the nursing home

“…Although efforts were made to maximize diversity, our participants may not be representative of the residents, family caregivers and HCPs in other jurisdictions. As focused ethnographic studies are contextual by nature, findings are not generalizable; however, similar settings could make use of the results (Higginbottom et al, 2013). To maximize transferability of the findings to similar contexts, rich descriptions have been provided (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).…”