Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2011 Oct 12;11:268. doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-11-268.
Qualitative research has the potential to inform and improve health care decisions but a study based on one year of publications suggests that it is not published in prominent health care journals. A more detailed, longitudinal analysis of its availability is needed. The purpose of this study was to identify, count and compare the number of qualitative and non-qualitative research studies published in high impact health care journals, and explore trends in these data over the last decade.
A bibliometric approach was used to identify and quantify qualitative articles published in 20 top general medical and health services and policy research journals from 1999 to 2008. Eligible journals were selected based on performance in four different ranking systems reported in the 2008 ISI Journal Citation Reports. Qualitative and non-qualitative research published in these journals were identified by searching MEDLINE, and validated by hand-searching tables of contents for four journals.
The total number of qualitative research articles published during 1999 to 2008 in ten general medical journals ranged from 0 to 41, and in ten health services and policy research journals from 0 to 39. Over this period the percentage of empirical research articles that were qualitative ranged from 0% to 0.6% for the general medical journals, and 0% to 6.4% for the health services and policy research journals.
This analysis suggests that qualitative research it is rarely published in high impact general medical and health services and policy research journals. The factors that contribute to this persistent marginalization need to be better understood.
定性研究有可能为医疗决策提供信息并加以改善，但基于一年出版物的一项研究表明，它并未发表在重要的医疗保健期刊上。需要对其可用性进行更详细、更长期的分析。本研究的目的是确定、计数和比较发表在高影响力的医疗保健期刊上的定性和非定性研究论文的数量，并探讨过去十年中这些数据的趋势。
采用文献计量学方法，从 1999 年至 2008 年，确定并量化了 20 种顶级普通医学和卫生服务及政策研究期刊中发表的定性文章。根据 2008 年 ISI 期刊引文报告中报道的四项不同排名系统的表现，选择了合格的期刊。通过搜索 MEDLINE 确定这些期刊发表的定性和非定性研究，并用四本期刊的目录内容进行了手工搜索验证。
1999 年至 2008 年期间，在十本普通医学期刊上发表的定性研究文章总数从 0 到 41 篇不等，在十本卫生服务和政策研究期刊上从 0 到 39 篇不等。在此期间，普通医学期刊上的实证研究论文中定性研究的比例从 0%到 0.6%不等，卫生服务和政策研究期刊上的比例从 0%到 6.4%不等。
这项分析表明，定性研究很少发表在高影响力的普通医学和卫生服务及政策研究期刊上。需要更好地了解促成这种持续边缘化的因素。
