Qualitative Research Methods for Public Health Investigation Report

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QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS FOR
PUBLIC HEALTH
INVESTIGATION REPORT
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................................... 3
RESEARCH QUESTION............................................................................................................................................. 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY................................................................................................................................. 3
SAMPLING METHOD................................................................................................................................................ 3
CULTURAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS.............................................................................................3
RESEARCH ANALYSIS.............................................................................................................................................. 4
REFLECTION................................................................................................................................................................ 6
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................................................... 7
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INTRODUCTION
This investigation report presents the implementation of a qualitative research method to
gain research data for the research. The research focuses on the use of qualitative research
for the public sector and analyzes how effectively it answers its research question
(Malterud et al ., 2016). The report also presents a reflection of the researcher which shows
the learning and challenges in context to the research.
RESEARCH QUESTION
What are the barriers faced by working women concerning their diet?
The research question focuses on the challenges faced by working women to maintain a
healthy diet.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this research, qualitative methodology is used in which data for the research is collected
through the interview process. The researcher takes the interview of 4 working women
and gains their views and thoughts about in context to the research (Alvesson & Sköldberg,
2017). The interview is a very effective method to collect research data as it provides
accurate and reliable data very often. The research data is analyzed with the help of a
thematic analytical tool to produce the research outcome.
SAMPLING METHOD
The participants of the research chose by the random sampling technique in which working
women asked to take part in the interview process (Malterud et al., 2016).
CULTURAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The research properly maintains the cultural rights of the participants and gains their
consents for the research. The researcher also asks to fill-up the form properly and inform
all the details about the research.
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RESEARCH ANALYSIS
1.) What are the factors that influence your diet?
Respondent 1: Being working women working shifts significantly affects my time as I had
to work at home and office.
Respondent 2: I have a daughter and I work also that cause challenges for my diet.
Respondent 3: I work at night and mostly asleep in the noon which disturbs my diet.
Respondent 4: I can’t manage my work and diet on time that influences my diet.
The question gets an almost similar answer which is being worked and handling the work
of home in daily routine effectively influence the diet of the working women as they can't
focus on their diet because of the work.
2.) How is the environment influencing your diet?
Respondent 1: food tastes good if having your meal with your family and in the workplace,
it is not possible.
Respondent 2: I am a single mother and for my, the environment is not that effective in my
diet as I am used to it.
Respondent 3: flexible shifts cause me any trouble and every time shift change my diet
disturbs.
Respondent 4: working environment I can say for sure as a healthy workplace often
influence your diet.
Environment plays a good role in the diet as participants believe that healthy and friend
environment positively impacts on their diet and helps them to maintain it daily. Also, it
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gets to know that working environment influence very much on the diet of working
women.
3.) What are the reasons that prevent you from a healthy diet?
Respondent 1: unable to manage time is the biggest hurdle that prevents me from a healthy
diet.
Respondent 2: I have to take care of my daughter first which takes lots of time of mine for
which I mostly rely on canned or fast food.
Respondent 3: I came to this place for work only so the taste of the food is not that good.
Respondent 4: In the workplace, it is very tough to maintain a healthy diet as I have to
mostly rely on the burgers etc.
Time is the issue found common in the responses gain from the 4 participants as they
believe unable to manage time prevents them from having a healthy diet.
4.) How can barriers to healthy eating be overcome?
Respondent 1: managing time is the best possible way to maintain a healthy diet.
Respondent 2: Morning exercise such as YOGA can help but for it, I had to spare some time.
Respondent 3: time management is very crucial to overcome the barrier of a healthy diet.
Respondent 4: maintain coordination between the work of home and workplace should be
the key to maintain a healthy diet.
The key to overcome from the challenge of healthy eating is maintaining coordination
between work of home and office and key issues found from the responses is the time as
participants believe that they having trouble managing their time so time management is
the common solution found to maintain a healthy diet.
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REFLECTION
The research I conducted is very helpful to find out the issues that prevent from having a
healthy diet for working women. The research focuses on learning qualitative research
along with the identification of issues of a healthy diet. I used qualitative research method
to gain research data which is a very good approach of collecting data as the accuracy and
reliability of the data is very high (Husebø et al., 2015). I randomly ask working women to
take part in my interview process and present their thoughts and view in context to a
healthy diet. I used thematic analysis to gain the research outcome as it suits with the
nature of the research to seek and find out a common pattern within the responses
obtained from the participants and produce the outcome of the research.
I used Gibbs' reflective model to throw light on my performance and learning in context to
the research as it is a very effective model to self-assess the activity I had done.
Figure: Gibbs’ Reflective model
Source: Husebø et al., 2015
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What went well?
The methodology I used is perfect as interview process found out as the best choice of
research approach to gain research data compare to observation method as it is more of a
practical approach that focuses on the behaviour and mindset of the participants along
with their responses (Tanaka et al., 2018). Also, the participants found for the research are
very supportive and provide very good answers that are very helpful in deriving research
outcome as they present their answers in context to their practical life such as what they
found disturbing as well as the data analytical tool Thematic analysis is also a good choice
to analyze data in which similar and common pattern is recorded that totally compatible
with the research (Waltz, 2019).
What are the challenges?
The biggest challenge in the research was convincing working women to take part in the
interview process as either they are going to work or coming from the work and in both
these conditions, they don't have enough time to take part in the interview process. Also
choosing the interview process over observation qualitative approach is a bit challenging
too but in the end, all the decision were spot on that helped the research (Tanaka et al.,
2018).
Learning experience
I gained valuable knowledge of the qualitative research method with the help of this
research which is very beneficial for me for my future perspective. Also interviewing
people shape my communication skill as interacting with random people increase my
confidence (Husebø et al., 2015). Overall the research is the success that effectively
answers the research question.
CONCLUSION
The research shows the significance of qualitative research for public health as through the
qualitative research the data collection is more accurate and reliable which helps in
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producing an effective outcome. The research shows the responses of 4 working women
that been analyze to produce research output.
REFERENCES
Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, K. (2017). Reflexive methodology: New vistas for qualitative
research. Sage.
Husebø, S. E., O'Regan, S., & Nestel, D. (2015). Reflective practice and its role in simulation.
Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 11(8), 368-375.
Katz, J. (2015). A theory of qualitative methodology: The social system of analytic
fieldwork. Méthod (e) s African Review of Social Sciences Methodology, 1(1-2), 131-146.
Malterud, K., Siersma, V. D., & Guassora, A. D. (2016). Sample size in qualitative interview
studies: guided by information power. Qualitative health research, 26(13), 1753-1760.
Rosenthal, M. (2016). Qualitative research methods: Why, when, and how to conduct
interviews and focus groups in pharmacy research. Currents in pharmacy teaching and
learning, 8(4), 509-516.
Tanaka, M., Okamoto, R., & Koide, K. (2018). Relationship between Reflective Practice Skills
and Volume of Writing in a Reflective Journal. Health, 10(03), 283.
Waltz, C. (2019). Impact of Reflective Practice within a Residency Program on New
Graduate Nurse Satisfaction, Stress, Support, and Retention Rates.
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