Combining Participatory-Action-Research With Single-Case-Experimental-Designs: A New Promise for a Mixed-Methods Approach

Evidence-based practice involves using clinical reasoning to integrate information from four sources: research evidence, the expertise of the clinician, the client’s values and perspectives, and the practice context. As such, research conducted to inform practice should adopt processes to collect data to inform all four sources. In this paper, we propose an approach to do so, which combines the qualitative Participatory-Action-Research approach - which privileges community voices - with a quantitative Single-Case-Experimental-Design approach - which systematically captures individual differences and change over time. Since both focus on individual change, both hold promise for a new complementary mixed-methods approach for clinical practice. A critical analysis of our own paediatric Single-Case-Experimental-Design study (Calder et al., 2020), including reflections on how Participatory-Action-Research principles could have been implemented from the start, leads into key recommendations about how community perspectives can be meaningfully integrated into clinical practice.