ArticlePloS one2011
Is qualitative research second class science? A quantitative longitudinal examination of qualitative research in medical journals.
Article in PloS one, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Recovery from postpartum psychosis: a systematic review and metasynthesis of women's and families' experiences.Archives of women's mental health · 2020Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Impact of psychologically tailored hand hygiene interventions on nosocomial infections with multidrug-resistant organisms: results of the cluster-randomized controlled trial PSYGIENE.Antimicrobial resistance and infection control · 2019Trial
- Advancing child health through applied qualitative research.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Review
- Optimizing qualitative methods in implementation research: a resource for editors, reviewers, authors, and researchers to dispel ten common misperceptions about qualitative research methods.Implementation science : IS · 2025Article
- Neuropsychiatric symptoms in systemic lupus erythematosus: mixed methods analysis of patient-derived attributional evidence in the international INSPIRE project.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Article
- Pathways and identity: toward qualitative research careers in child and adolescent psychiatry.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2024Article
- Understanding the Differences That Differentiate: A Model for Deciding Which Literature Review to Conduct.Journal of graduate medical education · 2024Article
- Qualitative research in health: value and visibility.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2023Article
- The utilization of systematic review evidence in formulating India's National Health Programme guidelines between 2007 and 2021.Health policy and planning · 2023Article
- Curated collections for educators: Nine key articles and article series for teaching qualitative research methods.AEM education and training · 2023Article
- Applying machine-learning to rapidly analyze large qualitative text datasets to inform the COVID-19 pandemic response: comparing human and machine-assisted topic analysis techniques.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- The Value and Potential of Qualitative Research Methods in Neurosurgery.World neurosurgery · 2022Article
- Cross-sectional analysis of bibliometrics and altmetrics: comparing the impact of qualitative and quantitative articles in theBMJ open · 2020Article
- A specific method for qualitative medical research: the IPSE (Inductive Process to analyze the Structure of lived Experience) approach.BMC medical research methodology · 2020Article
- Critical Appraisal of Qualitative Studies of Muslim Females' Perceptions of Physical Activity Barriers and Facilitators.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Review
- KLOSURE: Closing in on open-ended patient questionnaires with text mining.Journal of biomedical semantics · 2019Article
- Opening the horizons of clinical reasoning to qualitative research.Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis · 2019Article
- Health Sciences cultural safety education in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States: a literature review.International journal of medical education · 2018Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundQualitative research appears to be gaining acceptability in medical journals. Yet, little is actually known about the proportion of qualitative research and factors affecting its publication. This study describes the proportion of qualitative research over a 10 year period and correlates associated with its publication.
designA quantitative longitudinal examination of the proportion of original qualitative research in 67 journals of general medicine during a 10 year period (1998-2007). The proportion of qualitative research was determined by dividing original qualitative studies published (numerator) by all original research articles published (denominator). We used a generalized estimating equations approach to assess the longitudinal association between the proportion of qualitative studies and independent variables (i.e. journals' country of publication and impact factor; editorial/methodological papers discussing qualitative research; and specific journal guidelines pertaining to qualitative research).
findingsA 2.9% absolute increase and 3.4-fold relative increase in qualitative research publications occurred over a 10 year period (1.2% in 1998 vs. 4.1% in 2007). The proportion of original qualitative research was independently and significantly associated with the publication of editorial/methodological papers in the journal (b = 3.688, P = 0.012); and with qualitative research specifically mentioned in guidelines for authors (b = 6.847, P<0.001). Additionally, a higher proportion of qualitative research was associated only with journals published in the UK in comparison to other countries, yet with borderline statistical significance (b = 1.776, P = 0.075). The journals' impact factor was not associated with the publication of qualitative research.
conclusionsDespite an increase in the proportion of qualitative research in medical journals over a 10 year period, the proportion remains low. Journals' policies pertaining to qualitative research, as expressed by the appearance of specific guidelines and editorials/methodological papers on the subject, are independently associated with the publication of original qualitative research; irrespective of the journals' impact factor.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.