Researching Illness and Injury: Methodological Considerations

Circumstances surrounding the physical condition of the critically ill, the injured, and the dying make the conduct of qualitative research particularly difficult. Assumptions embedded in qualitative research are challenged or no longer apply: As sick people, participants are unfamiliar with their everyday worlds, and they are often incapable of describing their conditions and perceptions, so that researchers have difficulty obtaining data to comprehend, interpret, and generally conduct their research. Methodological problems extending from the participants' condition include the lack of everyday language to describe their experiences, the instability of the participants' reality, and the instability of the self. When researching participants who are sick, these methodological problems result in decisions about the timing of data collection, challenges to validity and reliability, and debates about who should be conducting this research.