Background:
Health policy makers now have access to a greater number and variety of systematic reviewsto inform different stages in the policy making process, including reviews of qualitativeresearch. The inclusion of mixed methods studies in systematic reviews is increasing, butthese studies pose particular challenges to methods of review. This article examines thequality of the reporting of mixed methods and qualitative-only studies.
Methods:
We used two completed systematic reviews to generate a sample of qualitative studies andmixed method studies in order to make an assessment of how the quality of reporting andrigor of qualitative-only studies compares with that of mixed-methods studies.
Results:
Overall, the reporting of qualitative studies in our sample was consistently better whencompared with the reporting of mixed methods studies. We found that mixed methods studiesare less likely to provide a description of the research conduct or qualitative data analysisprocedures and less likely to be judged credible or provide rich data and thick descriptioncompared with standalone qualitative studies. Our time-related analysis shows that for bothtypes of study, papers published since 2003 are more likely to report on the study context,describe analysis procedures, and be judged credible and provide rich data. However, thereporting of other aspects of research conduct (i.e. descriptions of the research question, thesampling strategy, and data collection methods) in mixed methods studies does not appear tohave improved over time.
Conclusions:
Mixed methods research makes an important contribution to health research in general, andcould make a more substantial contribution to systematic reviews. Through our carefulanalysis of the quality of reporting of mixed methods and qualitative-only research, we haveidentified areas that deserve more attention in the conduct and reporting of mixed methodsresearch.