Provide A Brief Synopsis

Supplementary Resources for Qualitative EvidenceSupplement B

to Chapter 30 Syntheses

T he field of qualitative evidence synthesis is very bumpy terrain. Literally dozens of terms for qualitative synthesis methods have emerged, referring to a disconcerting array of approaches. It is beyond the scope of this general textbook to describe each approach—indeed, there is no con- sensus on definitions, nor on which approaches are likely to remain in the synthesis repertoire in the years ahead. As noted in the textbook, there is not even consensus on what to call the entire enterprise. The most frequently used “umbrella” terms are qualitative metasynthesis, qualitative systematic review, qualitative evidence synthe- sis, and qualitative research synthesis (Booth et al., 2016); other terms include qualitative meta- analysis and qualitative data aggregation (Thorne, 2017). The leading organizations involved with systematic reviews, the Cochrane Collaboration and the Joanna Briggs Institute, typically use the umbrella term qualitative evidence synthesis. In nursing, the term metasynthesis has predom- inated. Nurse researchers have contributed more to the field of qualitative research synthesis than scholars in other health-related disciplines (Tricco et al., 2016).

Several groups of researchers have made efforts to compare different qualitative review approaches, often using systematic review meth- ods themselves. For example, a large group of

scholars from Canada (Kastner et al., 2016; Tricco et al., 2016) undertook a scoping review in which 409 articles describing 25 qualitative synthe- sis methods (some were mixed studies reviews) were analyzed. In the United Kingdom, another group mapped the qualitative synthesis terrain and made explicit comparisons among the approaches along several dimensions (Booth et al., 2016). We identified several other similar comparative efforts (Barnett-Page & Thomas, 2009; Hannes & Lockwood, 2011; Saini & Schlonsky, 2012; Schick-Makaroff et al., 2016), and others are likely to emerge as the field struggles to attain greater clarity and consensus.

We have created a table that indicates which resources provide comparative information about approaches to qualitative synthesis along several dimensions of variation. Table 1 shows review citations for 14 qualitative synthesis approaches. Our table does not include all approaches that were compared in the review articles. For example, one approach to qualitative synthesis, referred to as content analysis, was included in comparative tables in Hannes and Lockwood’s (2011) article but not in any of the others. We did not include this approach in Table 1.

A quick glance at Table 1 shows that certain approaches have received a lot of attention in these comparative reviews—especially grounded formal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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