1st Edition

Qualitative Research Methods for Medicine and Health Sciences

By Kirsti Malterud Copyright 2027
268 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

268 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Qualitative research methods are crucial for addressing central questions arising from clinical and organisational practice. In medicine and healthcare, knowing and scientific knowledge cannot be reduced to what is measurable. They also involve subjectivity, interpretation, diagnostic reasoning, interaction and ethical judgement. This book develops a coherent methodological framework in which... Read more

Part 1. Knowing human life, health and illness

1. A rich and diverse knowledge base for practice and inquiry

2. Unpacking assumptions underpinning qualitative methods

3. Rigour with a human face

4. What makes research qualitative, and why it matters

5. You are the interpreter – your most powerful research instrument

Part 2. Traversing the research process

6. Planning, flexibility and field notes along the path

7. Sampling guided by information power – advancing transferability

8. Data creation interacting with various sources of knowledge

9. Transcription – capturing voices, not just words

10. "Analysis—the creative art of rigourous reflection      "

11. "From complexity to knowing–systematic text condensation"

12. "What counts as a result–and what does not?"

13. Writing your study–the craft and the joy

Part 3. "On different forms of design and data"

14. Dialogue across designs – understanding experiences

15. Beyond conversation—narratives, unique cases and digital traces

16. Observation as situated research practice

17. Critical and committed inquiry in action

18. "Metasynthesis—surfacing prior evidence and creating new knowing"

19. Between tacit knowing and research evidence

Part 4. Theoretical and methodological questions revisited

20. "Theory situates interpretation, focus and abstraction"

21. "Validation revisited—soundness and scope of understanding"

22. Combining methods—sustaining philosophical coherence?

23. "Artificial intelligence— friend or foe in qualitative studies?"

Part 5. In conclusion

24. Dialogue and reflexivity rather than checklists for rigour?

25. "Recognising vulnerability as ethical responsibility"

26. Negotiating paradigms in the face of medical research traditions

 

 

Biography

Kirsti Malterud is Professor Emerita in General Practice at the University of Bergen, Norway.