[Reporting ethics board approval in German medical theses and journals]

[Utilization and reporting of qualitative research methods in health services research in Germany: a scoping review on original research publications (2010-2019)]

BACKGROUND

Qualitative research methods offer a unique perspective on health care services. However, little is known about the actual application of qualitative methods in health services research. Therefore, the aim of this study was to gain an overview of volume and variety of the use of qualitative research methods in health services research in Germany.

METHODS

By means of a scoping review, a systematic literature search of the database PubMed was conducted in September 2020. We included (1) qualitative studies in (2) a health services setting (3) in Germany, (4) published in either German or English as (5) original research in a journal (6) between 2010 and 2019. After removing duplicates, tandem teams of researchers first performed a title and abstract screening, followed by a full text screening. Data was extracted by using a category grid considering research focus, study design and reporting.

RESULTS

In total, 759 articles were included in the title and abstract screening. After applying the exclusion criteria, 97 articles were included in the data extraction. The studies investigating mainly subjective perspectives of different stakeholders, especially physicians and patients, covered 13 areas of health care. Interviews were the dominant form of data collection (n=64). Data analysis was mainly conducted using content analysis (n=65).

CONCLUSION

A clear absolute increase in publications since the mid-2010s can be observed. At the same time, there has been a strong tendency towards certain methods being used for data collection and analysis. Compared to reporting standards and guidelines (e.g., COREQ), incomplete reporting of research methods has been noted. The results show that both an extension of the range of methods and the quality of reporting need to be discussed.

Qualitative research methods in medical dissertations: an observational methodological study on prevalence and reporting quality of dissertation abstracts in a German university

Background

Qualitative methods offer a unique contribution to health research. Academic dissertations in the medical field provide an opportunity to explore research practice. Our aim was to assess the use of qualitative methods in dissertations in the medical field.

Methods

By means of a methodological observational study, an analysis of all academic medical dissertations’ abstracts between 1998 and 2018 in a repository databank of a large medical university faculty in Germany was performed. This included MD dissertations (Dr. med. (dent.)) and medical science dissertations (Dr. sc. hum.). All abstracts including “qualitativ*” were screened for studies using qualitative research methods. Data were extracted from abstracts using a category grid considering a) general characteristics (year, language, degree type), b) discipline, c) study design (mixed methods/qualitative only, data conduction, data analysis), d) sample (size and participants) and e) technologies used (data analysis software and recording technology). Thereby reporting quality was assessed.

Results

In total, 103 abstracts of medical dissertations between 1998 and 2018 (1.4% of N = 7619) were included, 60 of MD dissertations and 43 of medical sciences dissertations. Half of the abstracts (n = 51) referred to dissertations submitted since 2014. Most abstracts related to public health/hygiene (n = 27) and general practice (n = 26), followed by medical psychology (n = 19). About half of the studies (n = 47) used qualitative research methods exclusively, the other half (n = 56) used mixed methods. For data collection, primarily individual interviews were used (n = 80), followed by group interviews (n = 33) and direct observation (n = 11). Patients (n = 36), physicians (n = 36) and healthcare professionals (n = 17) were the most frequent research participants. Incomplete reporting of participants and data analysis was common (n = 67). Nearly half of the abstracts (n = 46) lacked information on how data was analysed, most of the remaining (n = 43) used some form of content analysis. In summary, 36 abstracts provided all crucial data (participants, sample size,; data collection and analysis method).

Conclusion

A small number of academic dissertations used qualitative research methods. About a third of these reported all key aspects of the methods used in the abstracts. Further research on the quality of choice and reporting of methods for qualitative research in dissertations is recommended.