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Qualitative assessment

from Psychology, health and illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2014

By
Felicity L. Bishop  and
Lucy Yardley
Edited by
Susan Ayers ,
Andrew Baum ,
Chris McManus ,
Stanton Newman ,
Kenneth Wallston ,
John Weinman  and
Robert West
Felicity L. Bishop
Affiliation:
Aldemoor Health Centre
Lucy Yardley
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
Susan Ayers
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Andrew Baum
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Chris McManus
Affiliation:
St Mary's Hospital Medical School
Stanton Newman
Affiliation:
University College and Middlesex School of Medicine
Kenneth Wallston
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
John Weinman
Affiliation:
United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's
Robert West
Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London
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Summary

Introduction

Qualitative assessment has long made a central contribution not only to psychological approaches to health and illness but also to traditional medical practice itself. In taking a case history a medical practitioner is engaged in a process of interviewing a patient to find out about their experiences. During this process the questioning is flexible and is influenced by the patient's previous answers. The practitioner must listen to and interpret what the patient tells them. The practitioner then uses their own explanatory framework to try to understand the patient's experience and determine an appropriate course of action. These processes of adaptable questioning and interpretation are central to qualitative assessment. In qualitative assessment, the researcher (or practitioner) begins with a question about experience or process, flexibly seeks out the information to answer that question and then uses interpretative skills to provide an explanation and understanding of the phenomena of interest. The development of explanations often highlights changes or interventions which can be implemented to enhance health care provision. Also central to traditional medicine is the use of the concept of cases, for example in everyday clinical practice and as exemplars in teaching. The study of cases in health psychology has been reinvigorated by Radley and Chamberlain (2001) and is well suited to qualitative, rather then quantitative, approaches to assessment.

A wide variety of qualitative methods has been applied to the study of health and illness.

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Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , pp. 314 - 318
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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