Cafe
Week 4 Collaboration Cafe
This week in your lesson, there was quite a bit of discussion about qualitative research. In thinking about
your PICOT question for your MSN project, in your opinion and your experience with your area of
interest, what value can qualitative research bring as you review the evidence to support your project?
Dr. Domiano and Fellow Classmates
While a quantitative research design is focused on facts, results and data in response to a clear cut,
identifiable problem and intervention, a qualitative research design is more of an exploratory process
centered around thoughts, attitudes, experiences, and understanding towards an issue in general which
may result in the identification of a specific problem which requires intervention. The study is an
exploration of perception and opinion arising from the accepted culture and practices of the setting
(Ramani & Mann, 2016). A quantitative study is numbers driven, measuring the presence or not of a
reaction/response to a trigger/intervention, a qualitative study is based on survey, interview, and
interaction between researcher and subject. As there is in a quantitative study, in a qualitative study
there is no control grouping, there is very little structure, and there is not necessarily any comparison of
cause and effect leaving the results and findings of this type of study open to explanation and
interpretation as opposed to measurable and quantifiable data.
As a refresher, my area of concern is safety in the operating room, particularly near miss/wrong
side/site/patient surgery. My PICOT question is as follows: In the operating room patient population at
my hospital, what is the effect of a formal, structured, scripted time out process in comparison to a non-
structured, informal, unfocused time out process on the number of near miss, wrong side/site/patient
incidences reported. After doing this week’s reading, I’m struggling to see how a qualitative study design
would assist in researching my PICOT question. I can however, see how a qualitative study design would
have been helpful in identifying the perception of the initial problem; and how the accepted practices in
the culture of my specific OR may have created or contributed to a gap in patient safety. A qualitative
study amongst the staff would have identified that staff felt there was some improvement needed in
order to improve patient safety, that there was a risk for wrong patient/side/side surgery, and that
additional steps or interventions were necessary. A qualitative study would have also been useful to
have staff identify what interventions would be helpful. At this point in the process, where the increased
risk has been identified, the interventions have been identified, and a plan for implementation has been
created, a quantitative research design is going to be most helpful to measure the effectiveness of the
proposed intervention.
Thank You
Nadine Quarshie, RN
Reference
Ramani, S. & Mann, K. (2016). Introducing medical educators to qualitative study design: Twelve tips
from inception to completion. Medical Teacher, 38(5), 456-463.
https://doi.org/10.3109/0142159x.2015.1035244
This study source was downloaded by 100000829957125 from CourseHero.com on 02-04-2022 09:46:07 GMT -06:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/77779722/NR505-wk-4-collaboration-cafedocx/