Content analysis: a guide for primary health care education researchers

Abstract

Content analysis is a data analysis method that aims to reduce data down into smaller categories in order to gain some form of deeper insight. The aim of this chapter is to understand qualitative content analysis through the use of examples and apply this method to primary health care education research. There are two broad approaches to qualitative content analysis and these are based on deductive or inductive methods: Inductive content analysis and deductive content analysis. The source of data for content analysis varies, but can include other papers; media reports; written material; of interviews. Once the source of date is determined, the next step is deciding on the unit of analysis, generally a whole interview or a discrete collection of data. There are a number of caveats with content analysis. Despite these caveats, content analysis provides a useful and approachable method for primary health care education researchers in analysing a wide range of texts.