Exploring Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology: a perfect fit for midwifery research
- Authors: Miles, Maureen , Chapman, Ysanne , Francis, Karen , Taylor, Beverley
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Women and Birth Vol. 26, no. 4 (2013), p. 273-276
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- Description: Background Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology has been used widely to understand the meaning of lived experiences in health research. For midwifery scholars this approach enables deep understanding of women's and midwives’ lived experiences of specific phenomena. However, for beginning researchers this is not a methodology for the faint hearted. It requires a period of deep immersion to come to terms with at times impenetrable language and perplexing concepts. Objectives This paper aims to assist midwives to untangle and examine some of the choices they face when they first come to terms with an understanding of this methodology and highlights the methodology's capacity to reveal midwifery authenticity and holistic practice. Discussion The illumination of a selection of various concepts underpinning hermeneutic phenomenology will inform midwives considering this methodology as suitable framework for exploring contemporary midwifery phenomena.
Ethical issues in health-care inquiry: a discussion paper
- Authors: Ignacio, Jeanette , Taylor, Beverley
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International journal of nursing practice Vol. , no. 19 (Supplement S1) (2013), p. 56-61
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- Description: This paper is a discussion of the possible ethical dilemmas that may arise in both qualitative and quantitative research despite stringent methodological protocols. Three categories of ethical issues will be elaborated on, namely, researcher–participant relations, informed consent and confidentiality and privacy. These are of note because ethical dilemmas most often arise in these areas. Both qualitative and quantitative research types may thus present with problems associated with any, or a combination, of these categories. Methodological rigour will also be discussed as a vital component of any research study. Critics of the qualitative approach have often suggested that the innate lack of methodological rigour has resulted in the preponderance of ethical issues in qualitative studies. Qualitative studies, similar to quantitative studies, have mechanisms that guarantee rigour, quality and trustworthiness. These checks are at par with those of quantitative research but based on different criteria. Both types of research, then, can be considered equal in terms of methodological rigour, regardless of the nature. As no research approach can be perfectly free from threats of ethical issues, it is the researcher's responsibility to address these in ways that will be less harmful to the participants, bearing in mind ethical problems can arise at any time during the research endeavour.