Critical Appraisal of a Qualitative Research on Dignity in Acute Hospital Care

Running head: CRITICAL APPRAISAL
The views of older people and health professionals about dignity in acute hospital care.
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CRITICAL APPRAISAL
3. Was the research design appropriate to address the aims of the research?
Yes Can’t tell No
Research design refers to the framework of methods that are selected by researchers
for combining different research components in a reasonable manner. The researchers in this
study adopted a phenomenology based qualitative research design (Schwartz-Shea and
Yanow 2013). This can be described as a correct approach owing to the fact that
phenomenology is adopted to describe a phenomenon and/or event with the use of a
combination of methods, such as, reading documents, visiting places, and conducting
interviews (Lewis 2015). The researchers explained the fact that in order to explore the views
of staff and inpatient on dignity, there was a necessity of structured observations, surveys,
and interviews, for collecting detailed information (Tauber‐Gilmore et al. 2018). However,
the authors did not present much information on the steps that would be followed for
construction of themes, with the aim of building an adequate dataset to search for emerging
themes, thus validating the findings.
4. Was the recruitment strategy appropriate to the aims of the research?
Yes Can’t tell No
Finding the appropriate informants or participants in a timely manner is considered
imperative for the success of a qualitative research. Time and again it has been stated
participants should be recruited in an accurate manner, for gaining a wider picture to the
problems that a particular system suffers from (Salazar, Crosby and DiClemente 2015). The
researchers clearly discussed the methodology and included patients aged more than 65 years,
who were in a sound mental and physical state to participate in interviews, and capable of
providing their informed consent (Tauber‐Gilmore et al. 2018). They further mentioned that a
purposive sampling approach was selected based on the objectives of the research and the

2CRITICAL APPRAISAL
characteristics of the target population. The researchers also explained that dissemination of
posters in hospital communal areas helped in inviting staff from different disciplines and
nurses who worked on project wards. According to Palinkas et al. (2015) one major
advantage of this sampling procedure can be accredited to the fact that this technique
provided the researchers with adequate justification for making generalisations from the large
sample that is being investigated. In addition, the sampling technique adopted by the
researchers was also beneficial in providing a plethora of non-probability sampling methods
for the investigators to draw on. Furthermore, the authors also discussed about the use of
snowballing technique for recruiting staff interviewees. This allowed them to reach people
who were difficult to sample, with other techniques (Ritchie, Lewis and Elam 2013).
5. Was the data collected in a way that addressed the research issue?
Yes Can’t tell No
Research setting refers to the social, physical and cultural site where the researchers
conduct their study. Owing to the fact that qualitative research basically depends upon
meaning-making, the participants are typically studied in natural settings (Fernandez et al.
2013). The same was followed by the researchers, which can be attributed to the fact that
participant selection was done from 17 wards, located an acute healthcare organisation in
London, amid three different hospital sites (Tauber‐Gilmore et al. 2018). Owing to the fact
that the study aimed to conduct interview of the patients and staff for exploring their
experiences, this research setting was justified. The data collection process was quite clear.
Patients were subjected to interviews in their wards, while the staff were interviewed in the
hospital premises or their private offices. The researchers were clearly presented the fact that
similar queries were shaped for both the interview schedules, with the aim of ensuring similar
themes, for the two groups. They also provided an explicit information on the interview
schedule in a tabular format, by eliciting the questions that were asked. Conducting