Qualitative Analysis

Qualitative Analysis

Introduction

Numerous studies on the subject have highlighted that emergency departments in the Australian healthcare setting have a culture of care and nurturance that is based on the tenets of efficiency, appropriateness and timeliness. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a qualitative analysis for the purpose of assessing the degree to which beliefs underpin shared knowledge systems. The paper also explains how these shared systems can have a strong influence on the decisions, actions, and behavioural patterns of nurses.

Sampling and Recruitment

An ethnographic study is to be conducted over a period of twelve months and the sample population will mainly comprise of dedicated triage nurses working in the emergency departments of four metropolitan tertiary Referral Hospitals. Care was taken to ensure that the nurses making up the sample population had an experience of more than two years. Recruitment was done while keeping in mind whether the hospitals from where the sample was selected had triage nurses, onsite radiology and diagnostics services, and emergency computer systems. The setting was the emergency departments of four different hospitals where the study was to be conducted (Elliott et al., 2012). Accessibility to the proposed site where the study was to be conducted was not an issue since special permission had been granted to the researchers to go ahead with the study. As a result, nurses were allowed to participate in the study and to give their feedback and opinion on different aspects of the nursing practice. In order to ensure the best possible outcome of the study and guarantee richness of information, the random sampling was carried out so that the element of personal bias and subjectivity were removed. The adequate sampling size determined for the study was 25 nurses. The reason why a small sample size was chosen was that the study was detailed and demanded through analysis. As a result, selecting a larger sample would naturally take more time.

Data Collection

The primary method used for gathering data was semi-structured interviews. These interviews were designed with the aim of helping the researchers to gain a deeper insight into whether cultural beliefs play an important role in shaping the behavioural patterns of nurses working in Australian healthcare settings. The recording of data was done by the interviewee who made detailed notes of interviews conducted with each nurse.

Ethical considerations

A number of ethical considerations had to be taken into serious account when conducting the study. For ...