Abstract
Objective:A growing volume of studies address methods for performing systematic reviews of qualitative studies. One such methodological aspect is the conceptual framework used to structure the review question and plan the search strategy for locating relevant studies. The purpose of this case study was to evaluate the retrieval potential of each element of conceptual frameworks in qualitative systematic reviews in the health sciences.Methods:The presence of elements from conceptual frameworks in publication titles, abstracts, and controlled vocabulary in CINAHL and PubMed was analyzed using a set of qualitative reviews and their included studies as a gold standard. Using a sample of 101 publications, we determined whether particular publications could be retrieved if a specific element from the conceptual framework was used in the search strategy.Results:We found that the relative recall of conceptual framework elements varied considerably, with higher recall for patient/population (99%) and research type (97%) and lower recall for intervention/phenomenon of interest (74%), outcome (79%), and context (61%).Conclusion:The use of patient/population and research type elements had high relative recall for qualitative studies. However, other elements should be used with great care due to lower relative recall.
Highlights
A qualitative systematic review or qualitative evidence synthesis provides answers or gains a deeper understanding of the what, how, or why of a phenomenon [1]
To investigate the presence of elements from conceptual frameworks in publication titles, abstracts, and controlled vocabulary, we used a set of qualitative systematic reviews identified in a study of database coverage of qualitative health literature [9] as our starting point and analyzed whether the studies included in the reviews jmla.mlanet.org
We focused on PubMed and CINAHL, as they are commonly recommended among health sciences researchers searching for qualitative research
Summary
A qualitative systematic review or qualitative evidence synthesis provides answers or gains a deeper understanding of the what, how, or why of a phenomenon [1]. Qualitative systematic reviews focus on summarizing, analyzing, and/or interpreting. The number of qualitative systematic reviews and evidence syntheses has increased dramatically during the last two decades, with many different approaches in existence [2, 3]. The increase in the number of qualitative studies within health care leads to a growing volume of studies addressing methods of systematically reviewing, integrating, and synthesizing findings from original qualitative studies. The Cochrane Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group is continuously involved in developing guidance on the synthesis of qualitative and mixed-method implementation evidence [4,5,6,7,8].
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