Building the knowledge base for patient-centred care: improving the use of qualitative study findings through meta-analysis and systematic reviews.

摘要

In an editorial for the journal written earlier this year, I argued that genuine multiprofessional research is still comparatively rare, and suggested that 'research practice in the field of cancer care still tends to focus upon isolated patient problems from a single professional, epistemologi-cal or methodological perspective' (O'Connor 2009, p. 220). In making this case, I also pointed to the nature of much non-medical cancer research, which consists primarily of small scale, descriptive studies conducted by isolated researchers, an observation broadly supported in respect of nursing research at least by Mantzoukas (2009), whose quantitative content analysis of the abstracts of 2574 research articles published in the 10 most influential nursing research journals between 2000 and 2006 found that only 7% of these studies adopted an experimental approach and 6% quasi-experimental methods when investigating a clinical problem.