Title : Qualitative research a path for understanding & improving patient care
Abstract:
Qualitative studies provide real life experience for a researcher. It provides a foundation for interaction with the clients in hospitals and community health centers and enables to comprehend their expectations. Thus, through qualitative research the story of the clients and his /her focus on health and significance to their life is discovered. It also provides bases for conducting quantitative research which would help validate the assumptions or the hypothesis.
Most of the curriculum in nursing focuses on quantitative research. Quantitative research may be better comprehended by students as it has a definitive structure. As we deal with individuals who are multifaceted they have their unique requirements of healthcare. Therefore, it’s the responsibility of the nursing researchers to provide a reservoir of researched evidence that would ensure care that can be more focused on individual personalized care which could be better with qualitative. Qualitative research will contribute to patient’s safety, sensitivity and will inculcate compassion in the nurses as they will develop better understanding of their patient. We live in a digitalized age where technology is at the finger tips so, qualitative research helps health care providers to be grounded and in touch with the human aspects.
My interaction with students and the faculty highlights their hesitation to conduct qualitative research, as reasons being their lack of language and communication skills. Secondly their mindset is that quantitative research is superior and easier than qualitative research. They prefer to avoid the bulk of huge data that could demand time and hard work. The faculty guiding students were found more confident mentoring quantitative research and took less risk concerning qualitative research due to lack of self-confidence. It was observed that those who attempted to do qualitative research were unable to bring out the essences of the information collected and attempted a mixed method which often did not do justices to the research.
Most students would be absorbed, enthusiastic and have a desire to conduct qualitative research if only they find well trained mentors and a better curriculum that focuses on qualitative research towards better quality nursing care wherein the patient is given the utter most priority.
