This week’s discussion revolved around the critical appraisal of a qualitative paper. Much of the initial discussion was around the sampling methods. Some felt that the sample may not be representative and could be skewed by the inclusion of perpetrators of domestic violence. The low numbers identified as perpetrators may not reflect the true views of perpetrators of domestic violence. The suggestion to discuss ethics in a separate post did not yield many responses though the theme seemed to come up again in posts regarding the sampling strategy.
There was a sense of recognition that the paper was informative and identified areas of practice that could be altered. Like mental health professionals not feeling it was their duty to explore issues around domestic violence and the need for further training. However, some readers felt that the mixed sample of professionals was not appropriate, with assumptions being made about years in practice conferring more expertise and different roles requiring more or less social perspective and thus confidence in enquiring about domestic violence.
It was suggested that comparison of these findings with those from other geographic areas or a sample that included different demographic profiles could allow further exploration of demographic and cultural variables. There was some recognition that sample sizes are smaller in qualitative work with the aim of theme saturation rather than that of reaching statistic power. Moira included a further post about how a case study approach is used in qualitative research, selecting a small sample and exploring an issue to further understand it.
The idea of having the findings cross checked by family members and witnesses was also bought up as a way of validating the responses of service users.
Some felt that the aims could have been stated more clearly in order to support the final recommendations of the study. Lack of clarity in the aims made it difficult to decide if the study had fulfilled its aims and as such supported further recommendations.
Moira supplied some further guidance on how we could look at the sample in qualitative research. Following this, issues around the representativeness of the sample were discussed with a general sense that the sample was not sufficient to adequately portray the views of perpetrators of domestic violence and that this paper may have misrepresented males.
A few posts brought up issues of ethics and recruitment of the sample with concern at the use of payment and the prohibitive nature of recruiting from a newspaper advertisement. This may exclude those who do not speak the language (in what is described as an area with a high proportion of ethnic minority and assumed cultural diversity)
Following an involved discussion around sampling, it may be helpful for group members to spend time looking at data analysis as suggested in one of the posts in order to enhance our critical appraisal of subsequent qualitative research.
