CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 812Meta-analysis and systematic reviewsQualitative Research Methods and ApplicationsDelphi Technique in Research

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 33 of the 34 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Establishing confidence in the output of qualitative research synthesis: the ConQual approach.

Open access
Munn, Zachary, Porritt, Kylie, Lockwood, Craig, Aromataris, Edoardo, Pearson, Alan·2014·BMC Medical Research Methodology
DOI 10.1186/1471-2288-14-108PMC PMC4190351
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The importance of findings derived from syntheses of qualitative research has been increasingly acknowledged. Findings that arise from qualitative syntheses inform questions of practice and policy in their own right and are commonly used to complement findings from quantitative research syntheses. The GRADE approach has been widely adopted by international organisations to rate the quality and confidence of the findings of quantitative systematic reviews. To date, there has been no widely accepted corresponding approach to assist health care professionals and policy makers in establishing confidence in the synthesised findings of qualitative systematic reviews. METHODS: A methodological group was formed develop a process to assess the confidence in synthesised qualitative research findings and develop a Summary of Findings tables for meta-aggregative qualitative systematic reviews. RESULTS: Dependability and credibility are two elements considered by the methodological group to influence the confidence of qualitative synthesised findings. A set of critical appraisal questions are proposed to establish dependability, whilst credibility can be ranked according to the goodness of fit between the author's interpretation and the original data. By following the processes outlined in this article, an overall ranking can be assigned to rate the confidence of synthesised qualitative findings, a system we have labelled ConQual. CONCLUSIONS: The development and use of the ConQual approach will assist users of qualitative systematic reviews to establish confidence in the evidence produced in these types of reviews and can serve as a practical tool to assist in decision making.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/1471-2288-14-108

Cites

33 of 33 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Figures

Figure 1 Ranking for dependability. This figure represents how a score for dependability is developed during the ConQual process, and is based on the response to 5 critical appraisal questions.
Figure 1 Ranking for dependability. This figure represents how a score for dependability is developed during the ConQual process, and is based on the response to 5 critical appraisal questions.CC BY · PubMed Central
Figure 2 Ranking for credibility. This figure represents how a score for credibility is developed during the ConQual process, and is based on the congruency of the authors interpretation and the supporting data.
Figure 2 Ranking for credibility. This figure represents how a score for credibility is developed during the ConQual process, and is based on the congruency of the authors interpretation and the supporting data.CC BY · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 34 references

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. The Joanna Briggs Institute: Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewers’ Manual: 2011 edition. 2011, Adelaide: The Joanna Briggs Institute
  2. Lewin S, Glenton C, Noyes J, Hendry M, Rashidian A: CerQual Approach: Assessing How Much Certainty to Place in Findings from Qualitative Evidence Syntheses. 2013, Quebec, Canada: 21st Cochrane Colloquium
  3. Glenton C, Colvin CJ, Carlsen B, Swartz A, Lewin S, Noyes J, Rashidian A: Barriers and facilitators to the implementation of lay health worker programmes to improve access to maternal and child health: qualitative evidence synthesis. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013, 10: CD010414-
  4. Glenton C, Lewin S, Carlsen B, Colvin C, Munthe-Kaas H, Noyes J, Rashidian A: Assessing the Certainty of Findings from Qualitative Evidence Syntheses: The CerQual Approach. 2013, Rome, Italy: Draft for discussion In GRADE Working Group Meeting

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 301–400 of 812

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Munn, Z., Porritt, K., Lockwood, C., Aromataris, E., & Pearson, A.
Affiliations
The University of Adelaide (AU)
Corresponding author
Munn, Zachary
ORCID
Venue
BMC Medical Research Methodology
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2014-09-20
Volume
14
Issue
1
Pages
108-108
ISSN
1471-2288 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/1471-2288-14-108
PMC
PMC4190351
OpenAlex
W2162242768
Cited by
803
References
34
Citations by year
2026: 100 · 2025: 116 · 2024: 106 · 2023: 96 · 2022: 90 · 2021: 77 · 2020: 71 · 2019: 49 · 2018: 45 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 1
FWCI
16.98
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • BMC Medical Research Methodology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) (University of Adelaide) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
  • Social Sciences › Education › Qualitative Research Methods and Applications
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Delphi Technique in Research
Keywords
critical appraisal, dependability, credibility, summary of findings tables, evidence rating, GRADE, healthcare decision-making
MeSH terms
Humans, Review Literature as Topic, Meta-Analysis as Topic, Reproducibility of Results, Program Evaluation, Evidence-Based Medicine, Qualitative Research

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review