· Identify the clinical problem and research problem that led to the study. What was not known about the clinical problem that, if understood, could be used to improve health care delivery or patient outcomes? This gap in knowledge is the research problem.
· How did the author establish the significance of the study? In other words, why should the reader care about this study? Look for statements about human suffering, costs of treatment, or the number of people affected by the clinical problem.
· Identify the purpose of the study. An author may clearly state the purpose of the study or may describe the purpose as the study goals, objectives, or aims.
· List research questions that the study was designed to answer. If the author does not explicitly provide the questions, attempt to infer the questions from the answers.
· Were the purpose and research questions related to the problem?
· Were qualitative methods appropriate to answer the research questions?
· Did the author cite quantitative and qualitative studies relevant to the focus of the study? What other types of literature did the author include?
· Are the references current? For qualitative studies, the author may have included studies older than the 5-year limit typically used for quantitative studies. Findings of older qualitative studies may be relevant to a qualitative study.
· Did the author evaluate or indicate the weaknesses of the available studies?
· Did the literature review include adequate information to build a logical argument?
· Did the author identify a specific perspective from which the study was developed? If so, what was it?
· When a researcher uses the grounded theory method of qualitative inquiry, the researcher may develop a framework or diagram as part of the findings of the study. Was a framework developed from the study findings?