Improving the quality of qualitative studies: do reporting guidelines have a place?

Family Practice encourages the submission and publications of qualitative studies in family practice. These studies provide invaluable information and insights regarding the processes, salience, accessibility, appropriateness and satisfaction of family practice.1 Such studies provide information superior to randomized control trials for these dimensions. RCTs in turn provide superior information concerning the effectiveness, safety and the cost-effectiveness of family practice. Given increasing demand from policy makers for research findings that guide decision-making in a complex environment, medical and health researchers have come to recognize the value of qualitative studies more generally. This manifests itself for example, in the incorporation of qualitative sub-studies within predominately quantitative research to provide contextual and in-depth understanding. It is appropriate then, to ask whether research-oriented health journals like Family Practice should require authors submitting qualitative studies to conform to reporting guidelines in accordance with expectations of more quantitative submissions. These latter reporting guidelines include CONSORT (RCTs), PRISMA (systematic reviews), STARD (diagnostic accuracy studies).2,3,4 Medical journals including Lancet, JAMA, NEJM, BMJ as well as Family Practice often require conformity to all or some of these reporting guidelines. These guidelines for qualitative research specify a minimum set of information needed for complete and clear reporting of what was found during a research study. They were introduced to overcome the well-established limitations in the reporting of scientific studies in many areas of health research. These can range from withholding publications of whole studies or pre-specified outcomes, often with negative or undesired results,to omissions of crucial information in published articles.5,6 Although there is limited evidence, it can be anticipated that problems of this nature will also occur with the reporting of qualitative studies. Reflecting an increased desire for rigour in reporting of qualitative research, some publishers (e.g. BioMed Central7) and journals (e.g. Journal of Advanced Nursing8) have now developed reporting guidelines for qualitative studies. Most importantly, the EQUATOR Network9 includes a number of guidelines for reporting qualitative research. EQUATOR is an international initiative that seeks to improve reliability and value of medical research literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting of research studies. Its various aims, as stated in their website, include: