There is a lot of poor qualitative research out there. Recently I reviewed an article in which the authors had spent three years studying people's experiences of chronic pain. They didn't identify any particular philosophy guiding their analysis, they just interviewed seven people and, somehow, came up with three 'themes': that pain was unpleasant; that it was aversive (something to be avoided); and it disrupted their lives. This is a good example of bad qualitative research. And there is a simple test you can apply if ever you're in doubt. All you need to do is to ask whether the research tells you anything you didn't already know. This study took three years, but told us … [Read more...] about Patient work