Tool for Critiquing Qualitative Research

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Assessment 2 template
Word count of the template = approx. 750 words
Tool for critiquing QUALITATIVE research (1500 word-equivalent)Tool for critiquing qualitative research is modified based on the Critical Review Form-
Qualitative Studies ©Law, M., Stewart, D., Pollock, N., Letts, L. Bosch, J., & Westmorland, M.
Instructions:
 Complete all of the questions in the template below in reference to the
article that you have selected. Ensure that you have selected the correct
template (quantitative or qualitative) to match the research method in the
article that you have selected.
 Where there is a Yes/No option in the question, delete the option that
does not apply.
Question 1: Study Purpose/Question
(a) Did the study have a clearly stated purpose/research question?
Yes
(b) Explain your response below:
Yes, the study by Carlson et al. (2019) had a clear purpose as the paper clearly
stated that the aim of the research was to understand attitude about access to
influenza vaccination experienced by parents of children hospitalized for influenza
and to identify strategies to promote influenza vaccine uptake.
Question 2: Relevance to nursing/midwifery practice
(a) Explain how this question was relevant to nursing/midwifery practice.
The above question is relevant to nursing/midwifery practice nurses have a role in
attending to children who are hospitalized with influenza. As they come in regular
contact with parents of such children, knowing about barriers can help nurses to
educate such parents and improve advising related to the necessity of vaccination.
Nurses are those groups of health care professionals, who come in direct contact
with the patients. Hence, they are in a prime positive to give proper advice and
information related to influenza vaccination. The clinical question in the qualitative
paper by Carlson et al. (2019) can give nurses the idea about key misconceptions
and barrier to influenza vaccination among parents. They can tailor the education

plan accordingly so that both access issue and parent’s interest is vaccination is
improved (Smith, Sim and Halcomb 2016).
Question 3: Ethics
(a) What were the possible risks of participating in the study?
The qualitative study was part of the research and surveillance program that was
being held on paediatric influenza hospitalization in 2017. This programme
identified 1268 influenza positive children. To investigate about the research
question, surveillance nurse collected the data from the parents or caregivers of
these children. The parents were approached via telephone call. There was no
health risk for participants due to taking part in the study. This is because the study
was not related to evaluating the effect of any intervention. However, there was
privacy and confidentiality related risk as parent’s confidential information might be
disclosed. However, this might have addressed during the informed consent
process. The privacy issue was also resolved by conducting telephone based
invitation and asking parent for the best time when they could come for interview.
This strategy reduced any violation of patient’s interest as participation in research
as well as in the interview was planned as per parent’s preference. Informed
consent and fulfilling ethical requirement eliminated risk related to confusion and
coercion (Ryen 2016).
(b) Were these risks clearly identified by the authors?
No
(c) If risks were identified by the authors, how did they propose to minimise risk?
The authors did not proposed any method to minimize the risk
(d) Did the authors state that they had approval from an ethics committee to
undertake the study?
Yes
(e) How did the authors obtain informed consent from participants?
The informed consent process was completed by either giving a consent pack in the
hospital or sending it to home of parents. This pack gave details about the overall
research process.
(f) Did you identify and potential risks associated with the study that were not
identified by the authors and if so, what were they?
One potential risk identified is the lack of consideration of the privacy and
confidentiality issue in research. This is said because nowhere in the study it was
mentioned that the participant’s private details or identity will be kept confidential.
This may lead to controversy during the research (Surmiak 2018, September).
Question 4: Study Methodology
(a) What the chosen methodology for this study?

Qualitative research method using semi-structured interview was chosen as the research
methodology for the study.
(b) Was this choice suitable for the given research problem/question?
Yes
(c) Explain your response to (b):
Selection of qualitative research methodology was appropriate for the study as the main
objective of the paper was to explore attitude towards access to influenza vaccination
among parents of hospitalized children with influenza. This means the study aimed to
explore the subjective data related to the research topic. The suitability of the qualitative
research methodology in the context of the research question is that this method collects
non-numerical or subjective data which is focused on meaning making. It is a form of
interpretive and naturalistic approach to research design which is concerned with
understanding individual’s perspective related to a phenomenon of interest (Green and
Thorogood 2018). Carlson et al. (2019) aimed to explore parent’s perspective about
vaccination and the qualitative research design will support collecting subjective data in this
area.
Question 5: Data Collection/Rigour
(a) Describe how the data was collected for this study (interview, observation, etc).
The data was collected using semi-structured phone interviews with parents and the
surveillance nurses were involved in collecting the data. Apart from data on demographics,
vaccination history, hospital details, clinical features and comorbidities, the interviews
collected data about intrapersonal factors, interpersonal factors, organisation, community
and policy related factors linked to accessing influenza vaccination. The sensitivity and
relevance of each question was checked by a consumer representation.
(b) Did the researchers provide the participants with the opportunity to check the collected
data
or research findings?
No
(c) Did the researchers continue recruiting people to the study until data saturation
was reached?
Yes
(d) Did the study use multiple data collection methods (eg collect data from more
than one source)? No
(e) Explain how the points in (b), (c) and (d) contribute to the trustworthiness of the
overall research findings.
The researchers checked for accuracy of the collected data by reviewing all
transcripts before analysis. However, they did not provide participants the
opportunity to review the transcript. This might affect the accuracy of the findings
as it increases the chance of misinterpretation of any information on phone call.