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Qualitative Evidence Synthesis

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Patient Involvement in Health Technology Assessment

Abstract

Qualitative evidence synthesis, also known as qualitative systematic review, offers a vehicle for presenting patients’ attitudes, beliefs and feelings as originally captured by individual qualitative research studies. By aggregating or integrating views from multiple studies, rather than a single study, the science of systematic reviews takes steps to protect against allowing findings from an isolated study to overly influence our understanding or even to lead us to omit important perspectives. This chapter examines the wide range of uses to which qualitative evidence synthesis can be applied within HTA (Ring et al., Int J Technol Assess Health Care 27:384–390, 2011a; http://www.nhshealthquality.org/nhsqis/8837.html. Accessed 8 Apr 2016, 2011b) and introduces methods to identify, synthesise and analyse patient narratives from the research literature. The chapter concludes by briefly reviewing methods by which qualitative data might be integrated with quantitative data from an effectiveness review.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Andrew Booth

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  1. Andrew Booth
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Correspondence to Andrew Booth .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. No. 9 Bioquarter, Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Karen M. Facey

  2. Department of Public Health, Research Unit of General Practice, University of Southern Denmark, Institute of Public Health, Odense, Denmark

    Helle Ploug Hansen

  3. Patient and Citizen Involvement Interest, HTAi, Ashgrove, Queensland, Australia

    Ann N.V. Single

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Booth, A. (2017). Qualitative Evidence Synthesis. In: Facey, K., Ploug Hansen, H., Single, A. (eds) Patient Involvement in Health Technology Assessment. Adis, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4068-9_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4068-9_15

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