nt to nursing" (Vishnevsky and Beanlands 2004, p.236).
Those doing qualitative research get most of their information from in-depth discussions between the researcher and the participant. They use purposeful sampling of individuals who have unique knowledge of an event they are studying (Vishnevsky ands Beanlands 2004, p.236). Grounded theory methodology is a method of developing new theories from data obtained in studies (Vishnevsky and Beanlands 2004, p. 237). It is a way to do inductive analysis of qualitative research by moving from specific observations to general theories (Byrne 2001, pp. 1155-1156). The researcher looks for a central variable that will serve as the basis for the theory from the data collected and its analysis. Nurses can use grounded theory to develop strategies for building theories from qualitative research data. The researcher should always try to link together the methodology, philosophy, and research method of a qualitative study.
Qualitative research often has idiosyncratic findings which may be difficult to apply to settings outside the research setting because it is very subjective in nature (Vishnevsky and Beanlands 2004, p.237). The scientific merit, strengths and weaknesses and the generalizability of a qualitative study needs to be adapted and related by the end-user to his/her practice setting. In assessing qualitative research, it is necessary to address how closely the researcher remained true to qualitative research methods, how well subjects were selected, how the data was collected and analyzed, and the truthfulness and validity of the findings reported. Truthfulness in qualitative research is determined by the credibility and comprehensiveness of the data, which, in turn, reflect the accuracy and completeness with which the subject's experiences were recorded.
Three methods were used to ensure trustworthiness in a study at the University of Toronto (Singer, Martin, Gia...