How are qualitative methods used in diabetes research? A 30-year systematic review

ABSTRACT

We aimed to describe how qualitative methods are used in global research on diabetes and identify opportunities whereby qualitative methods could further benefit our understanding of the human experience of diabetes and interventions to address it. We conducted a systematic review of National Library of Medicine, EMBASE, and Web of Science electronic databases to identify original research articles that used qualitative methods to study diabetes between 1980 and 2011. We identified 554 eligible articles and categorised these by geographic region, year of publication, study population, study design, research question, qualitative data collection methods, and journal type. Results show low use of qualitative methods in diabetes research over the past 30 years. The majority of articles (75%) reported using substantive qualitative research, while mixed-methods research has remained underutilised. Eighty-five per cent of articles reported studies conducted in North America or Europe, with few studies in developing countries. Most articles reported recruiting clinic-based populations (58%). Over half (54%) of research questions focused on patient experience and 24% on diabetes management. Qualitative methods can provide important insights about socio-cultural aspects of disease to improve disease management. However, they remain underutilised for understanding the diabetes experience, especially in Africa and Asia and amongst non-clinic populations.

KEYWORDS:

• Diabetes
• qualitative research
• systematic review

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Barbara Abu-Zeid and Niha Bhattarai for their assistance with database searches. B.N.K. is supported by Graduate Research Fellowship grant 0234618 from the National Science Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 ‘Oceania’ is a regional classification of countries by the United Nations Geoscheme, which includes Australia, New Zealand, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia (including American Samoa).

2 For example, the journals Social Science and Medicine and Patient Education and Counselling were categorised as social science journals; Diabetes Medicine and Diabetes Care were categorised as medical journals; and Qualitative Health Research and Diabetes Educator were categorised as public health or health services journals.