What's in a name? Qualitative description revisited

Abstract

"Whatever Happened to Qualitative Description?" (Sandelowski, 2000) was written to critique the prevailing tendency in qualitative health research to claim the use of methods that were not actually used and to clarify a methodological approach rarely identified as a distinctive method. The article has generated several misconceptions, most notably that qualitative description requires no interpretation of data. At the root of these misconceptions is the persistent challenge of defining qualitative research methods. Qualitative description is a "distributed residual category" (Bowker & Star, 2000). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press) in the classification of these methods. Its value lies not only in the knowledge its use can produce, but also as a vehicle for presenting and treating research methods as living entities that resist simple classification.

Social support in the workplace for physicians in specialization training

“…An interpretive inductive analysis was conducted to build a qualitative description of the perceptions of physicians in specialization training [41,42]. The method was used to systematically describe the meanings included in this qualitative material [43] and to conduct a systematic process of identifying, coding, and categorizing the data [44].…”

A pilot study of user satisfaction and perceived helpfulness of the Swedish version of the mobile app PTSD Coach

“…The interviews were conducted by one of the authors (MC) and the participants’ responses to the semi-structured interview were noted during the interviews. Data was analysed according to principles from qualitative description (Sandelowski, 2010). Notes were summarized in key units, and these key units were organized according to their common content (by MC).…”

Moving backwards, moving forward: the experiences of older Filipino migrants adjusting to life in New Zealand

“…The theoretical and epistemological position of this methodology draws from the “general tenets of naturalistic inquiry” (Sandelowski, 2000, p. 337). Naturalistic inquiry explores a phenomenon exclusive to its natural state, which enables researchers to gain an understanding of participants’ perceptions about real-life situations (Guba & Lincoln, 1982), and this type of inquiry aligns with qualitative description, where findings are presented close to the participants’ actual words, referred to as “data-near” (Sandelowski, 2010). A naturalistic philosophical orientation allowed the researchers in this study to undertake an analysis that sought “both descriptive validity, an accurate accounting of events that most people observing the same event would agree is accurate, and interpretive validity, or an accurate accounting of the meanings participants attributed to those events that those participants would agree is accurate” (Sandelowski, 2000, p. 336).…”