Qualitative research methods in medical dissertations: an observational methodological study on prevalence and reporting
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(2020) 20:301
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Qualitative research methods in medical dissertations: an observational methodological study on prevalence and reporting quality of dissertation abstracts in a German university Charlotte Ullrich* , Anna Stürmlinger, Michel Wensing and Katja Krug
Abstract Background: Qualitative methods offer a unique contribution to health research. Academic dissertations in the medical field provide an opportunity to explore research practice. Our aim was to assess the use of qualitative methods in dissertations in the medical field. Methods: By means of a methodological observational study, an analysis of all academic medical dissertations’ abstracts between 1998 and 2018 in a repository databank of a large medical university faculty in Germany was performed. This included MD dissertations (Dr. med. (dent.)) and medical science dissertations (Dr. sc. hum.). All abstracts including “qualitativ*” were screened for studies using qualitative research methods. Data were extracted from abstracts using a category grid considering a) general characteristics (year, language, degree type), b) discipline, c) study design (mixed methods/qualitative only, data conduction, data analysis), d) sample (size and participants) and e) technologies used (data analysis software and recording technology). Thereby reporting quality was assessed. Results: In total, 103 abstracts of medical dissertations between 1998 and 2018 (1.4% of N = 7619) were included, 60 of MD dissertations and 43 of medical sciences dissertations. Half of the abstracts (n = 51) referred to dissertations submitted since 2014. Most abstracts related to public health/hygiene (n = 27) and general practice (n = 26), followed by medical psychology (n = 19). About half of the studies (n = 47) used qualitative research methods exclusively, the other half (n = 56) used mixed methods. For data collection, primarily individual interviews were used (n = 80), followed by group interviews (n = 33) and direct observation (n = 11). Patients (n = 36), physicians (n = 36) and healthcare professionals (n = 17) were the most frequent research participants. Incomplete reporting of participants and data analysis was common (n = 67). Nearly half of the abstracts (n = 46) lacked information on how data was analysed, most of the remaining (n = 43) used some form of content analysis. In summary, 36 abstracts provided all crucial data (participants, sample size,; data collection and analysis method). (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected] Department of General Practice and Health Services Research, University of Heidelberg Hospital, INF 130.3, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and i
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