EBVM Toolkit 11: qualitative study checklist

Introduction

Critical appraisal is a process which is used to help you identify the strengths and weakness of a research paper.  Understanding how appropriate the study design is for the question you are seeking to answer, how well the study was carried out, and how good the reporting in the paper is helps you to assess whether the paper is likely to provide reliable evidence.  

This page is designed to help you appraise the report of a qualitative study.  Answering the questions will help you to reflect on how valid the results might be, how well reported they are and whether they are applicable to your local circumstances.

Few papers overtly use qualitative methods in veterinary medicine. While some see qualitative methods to be inferior to quantitative research, the two can happily co-exist and answer different questions. Qualitative research is particularly concerned with making sense of phenomena in terms of the meanings that people bring to them. As qualitative research frequently involves interview techniques it will have limited application in veterinary medicine. An example is a study by Litva (2010) investigating owners’ perceptions of the causes of crib biting or wind sucking behaviour in their horses¹

Qualitative study checklist

For each question think about whether the answer is yes, no or not sure and what your reasoning is for that answer.

1. Was the sample used in the study appropriate to its research question?

Have the right participants been included in the study? Sample size may not be as important as in quantitative research but sufficient participants should have been included in order to gain an understanding of the issues.

2. Was the data collected appropriately?

The methods of data collection should be described with some justification of the methods used.

3. Was the data analysed appropriately?

There should be a description of the methods. Did participants have an opportunity to check the findings?

4. Can the results of the study be applied to your own setting?

Are the subjects similar to your population? Does your setting differ significantly? Can you gauge benefit and harm for your local situation?

5. Does the study adequately address any potential ethical issues, including reflexivity?

Was the study ethical? Were potential issues if reflexivity considered?
Reflexivity is about the influence a researcher can have on the data collected and should be addressed.

6. Overall: is what the researchers did clear?

Does what was done make sense?

Try it out yourself

You could use the following paper to try out the questions:

Lastein, D., Vaarst, M. and Enevoldsen, C. (2009) Veterinary decision making in relation to metritis – a qualitative approach to understand the background for variation and bias in veterinary medical records. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 51, 36. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-51-36

References

1. Litva, A., Robinson C.S. and Archer D.C. (2010) Exploring lay perceptions of the causes of crib-biting/windsucking behaviour in horses. Equine Veterinary Journal,42 (4) pp 288-293. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2042-3306.2009.00025.x