Value of Qualitative Research Overview

¶ … Value of Qualitative Research

Overview of qualitative research vs. quantitative research as a genre, specifically using the recent qualitative research article entitled "Listening to voices of hospitalized high-risk antepartum patients."

The value of qualitative, narrative, descriptive forms of research is exemplified by the article "Listening to voices of hospitalized high-risk antepartum patients" in the Journal of Obstetrics Gynecological Neonatal Nursing by M.S. Richter, C. Parkes, and J. Chaw-Kant. Qualitative research seeks to provide a human face for individuals undergoing difficult circumstances, such as the aftermath of a high-risk pregnancy. The style of the piece begins, like a more quantitative work, by justifying the research, but the article evolves in a more discursive format, addressing themes that emerged from interviews rather than trying to quantify the participant's feelings in a format that can be put into a statistical table. Of course, it is possible in a quantitative study to allow patients to rate subjective feelings, like pain or depression, on a scale of 1-10. But the process of open interviewing itself can elicit responses that might not be predicted from the researchers, such as a patient's need for privacy during such a fearful life change, a patient's concern for family members in the hospital environment, or worries about being a burden.

Qualitative interviewing techniques also allow patients to give suggestions to the researchers, and can even act as potentially therapeutic process, however unintentionally, for the patient. Interviewing allows the patients to provide input to the researchers and thus gives a sense of self-empowerment to the patients. This is especially important for subjects in the article, who often feel helpless, given the circumstances of their pregnancy. The women in the study recommended that the unit should try to allow for easier and more frequent visits from the patient's family, and include more activities to keep the new mothers' minds active.

Qualitative research does have its limitations. For example, it is more time- consuming than quantitative research, because often makes less broad use of general surveys. In this study, only thirteen female subjects were interviewed. However, the small nature of the study may also reflect the limited ambition of the study, as it mainly focused upon improving a specific hospital's unit.

A slightly broader study was deployed for the quantitative study entitled "Multiple gestations: side effects of antepartum bed rest." This study found that high-risk pregnancies and bed rest significantly increased the stressors upon the women. It measured this by using the Antepartum Stressors Hospital Inventory, and depressive symptoms were measured by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). The weekly rate of maternal weight gain during hospitalization was also significantly less than recent recommendations for multiple gestation weight gain and women on bed rest reported a high number of depressive symptoms than those patients not on bed rest. CES-D scores for depressive symptoms were high as were postpartum symptoms for women in the study.