The Clinical Researcher: A Reflective and Practical Guide for Qualitative Health Research

This accessible text supports health practitioners undertaking qualitative research to inform clinical practice, guiding readers through the decision-making process from planning and proposing, through data collection, to dissemination and impact. Qualitative research makes an important contribution to the health evidence base, including improving service provision, practitioner communication, and patient safety, as well as informing policies, generating important knowledge about health, and providing populations with a voice in the health context.

Balancing the need for practitioners to operate in an evidence-informed way, the increasing role of a research culture in the health service, and the everyday clinical demands faced in practice, this book includes strategies for managing the reality of undertaking qualitative research while working in clinical practice and includes a wide range of ＂bite size＂ chapters on topics such as:

• Quality improvement
• Evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence
• Managing dual roles
• Planning a project
• Working with stakeholders
• Ethics
• Data collection methods
• Conducting digital research
• Recruitment and sampling
• Data management
• Analytical approaches
• Thematic approaches
• Research with vulnerable groups
• Dissemination
• Translating research into practice.

This book is a practical resource for clinical researchers, designed to support the application of learning. Each chapter opens with learning objectives, and ends with a reflection on the chapter, integrating case examples and highlighting core issues. Practitioner experience boxes and reflective activities bring an invaluable real-world perspective to each chapter.

Qualitative Health Research is the ideal text for all healthcare practitioners and trainees new to qualitative research, including those from medicine, nursing, midwifery, psychology, allied health, and public health.

Dr Michelle O’Reilly is an Associate Professor of Communication in Mental Health at the University of Leicester and a Research Consultant and Quality Improvement Advisor for Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust. Michelle is also a Chartered Psychologist in Health and a visiting lecturer at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Michelle has research interests in mental health and social media, self-harm and suicide, neurodevelopmental conditions, and child mental health services, such as mental health assessments and family therapy. Michelle recently won the Anselm Strauss Award for Qualitative Family Research for her co-authored contribution on discursive psychology in this area (with Nikki Kiyimba and Jessica Lester). Michelle has expertise in qualitative methodologies and specialises in discursive psychology and conversation analysis and has written several books about research methods for different audiences.

Dr Philip Archard is an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Education and Training at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, where he works on two doctoral courses: a qualifying programme in child, community and educational psychology and a programme in advanced practice and research for experienced health and social care professionals. Philip is also a Visiting Fellow at the University of Leicester School of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy. A social worker by background, Philip’s research interests are in the areas of qualitative research, child and adolescent mental health, and child welfare. Until recently, Philip was working as a mental health practitioner in a specialist child and adolescent mental health service team.

Dr Nikki Kiyimba is a clinical academic, who works in private practice as is a Chartered Consultant Clinical Psychologist in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is also an academic with extensive experience in tertiary education, and of postgraduate programme leadership. She is a journal editorial member, guest editor and peer reviewer for several international journals. She has co-authored three textbooks on research methods and has an extensive publication history at the intersection of the fields of mental health, spirituality, trauma, discursive practice, and research methodology.