Miller W L, Crabtree B F
Department of Family Practice, Lehigh Valley Hospital, Allentown, PA 18105-1556.
Fam Pract Res J. 1994 Sep;14(3):289-97.
The clinical process used to make sense of patient concerns closely parallels the analysis process of qualitative research. This partly explains why qualitative research methods are appropriate for many family practice research questions. Unfortunately, the language used by qualitative researchers, especially with regards to analysis, is often obscure. This impedes family physicians from implementing qualitative research. This paper overviews qualitative analysis and introduces a language and means by which family physicians can begin to make sense of qualitative data. The concepts, "reflexivity," "iteration," "data saturation," and "text," are defined. Three core steps of qualitative analysis are identified and compared to the diagnostic process. They consist of choosing an organizing system, reducing the data, and making connections. Four idealized ways for conducting these steps, editing, template, quasistatistical, and immersion/crystallization, are presented and compared to four ways of approaching patient concerns. Finally, the process of creating an appropriate qualitative analysis strategy is described for a hypothetical research study and some pitfalls and principles of qualitative analysis are reviewed.
用于理解患者问题的临床过程与定性研究的分析过程极为相似。这在一定程度上解释了为何定性研究方法适用于许多家庭医疗研究问题。不幸的是，定性研究人员所使用的语言，尤其是在分析方面，往往晦涩难懂。这阻碍了家庭医生开展定性研究。本文概述了定性分析，并介绍了一种家庭医生能够开始理解定性数据的语言和方法。对“反思性”“迭代”“数据饱和”和“文本”等概念进行了定义。确定了定性分析的三个核心步骤，并将其与诊断过程进行比较。它们包括选择一个组织系统、简化数据以及建立联系。介绍了进行这些步骤的四种理想化方法，即编辑法、模板法、准统计法和沉浸/结晶法，并将其与处理患者问题的四种方法进行比较。最后，针对一项假设的研究描述了制定适当定性分析策略的过程，并回顾了定性分析的一些陷阱和原则。
