In the healthcare sector, the decision-making process must be based on the best available evidence. These researches will not only allow to bring innovation in health care practices, but it will also improve the overall quality of healthcare service globally.
In order to discover new ideas in nursing, two types of researches are common: qualitative as well as quantitative. The quantitative research trends in nursing conduct more accurate or measurable data analysis. However, as far as the research with aims to improve the current practices in hospitals is concerned, qualitative data can bring a large number of evidence together to provide deep insights.
The names of some important qualitative research methods in nursing include phenomenology, ethnography, ground theory and Systematic literature reviews. GRADE- CERQual is another important method often used in nursing research. This article aims to describe GRADE- CERQual in detail as a qualitative method of research in nursing and healthcare.
GRADE- CERQual- A brief introduction
GRADE- CERQual is the combination of two words, GRADE and CERQual. On the same ground, CERQual stands for ‘The Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research’. These days the systematic use of qualitative evidence and systematic review of intervention are very common in making health and nursing policy decisions. Nevertheless, the evidence of effectiveness in informing the decision on health intervention is not sufficient.
For making effective decisions, the decision-makers must also gather information on the acceptability and feasibility of the intervention. The policymakers need an approach to find how much confidence they should place in review findings so they can sufficiently emphasise some findings in the decision. Thus, GRADE- CERQual is a transparent and systematic framework that nurses can use to review findings from qualitative studies.
Reveiw Findings
Critical to the development and importance of the CERQual approach is the understanding of the review findings. In CERQual approach, the review findings are an analytical output derived through qualitative evidence synthesis. These analytical outputs are based on the data collected from primary studies that aim to define a phenomenon or different aspects of a phenomenon. The word phenomenon in this context means the main focus of a qualitative injury.
Aims of the CERQual Approach
GRADE- CERQual allows nurses to make a transparent assessment to know how much confidence decision-makers can place in reviews and responses gathered through qualitative evidence. The confidence in GRADE- CERQual is the extent to which a review finding justifies the phenomenon of interest. Thus, its aim is to facilitate the decision-makers in making informed policy decisions in healthcare, such as in the nursing sector, by conducting qualitative evidence synthesis.
The GRADE- CERQual in healthcare and nursing aims to access extent of confidence one should place in order to make informed decisions has four main components.
Methodological limitations
The methodological limitations’ component aims to access weaknesses in the methodology of individual studies that may impact our confidence in a review finding.
It requires some systematic and transparent approaches to critically find the methodological weaknesses in individual research. The following are some steps that can help you assess the methodological limitations in GRADE- CERQual:
Relevance
Relevance in the component of the GRADE- CERQual is the measure of the extent to which a body of the primary data supports review findings. Besides, it measures the relevancy by comparing the review findings of the primary studies in the context of the research questions. The following are some steps that help in measuring relevance:
Coherence
Coherence of review findings is the act of assessing clarity and compatibility between the primary data and review findings used to synthesise the data. In all types of research, the ‘findings’ are the ‘transformation’ of the raw data by using descriptive, interpretative and other appraisal techniques. Thus, this qualitative evidence synthesis component focuses on identifying the hidden pattern in data collected through primary sources in the synthesis.
Adequacy of data
In the context of the GRADE- CERQual, the adequacy of data refers to an overall determination. In simple words, it is the portion of the data to be gathered, even the one not analysed.
Bottom lines
The context of this article explained that GRADE. CERQual is the transparent and systematic process of assessment of the extent of confidence to be placed in individual review findings. It explained what review findings are, the aims of GRADE- CERQual and its four important components along with steps. This provided only basic information about the CERQual. For getting more information, wait for our next informative article.
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