The Early Career Network (ECN) of APACPH has launched a programme to promote qualitative research methods among medical and public health professionals in the region. This programme is conducted with the participation of academic experts from APAPCH member institutions under the guidance of the Research and Development Committee of the ECN.
The first activity under this series was conducted in Sri Lanka and was organized in collaboration with its member organization, the Core Group for Disaster Relief of Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo.
The facilitators were Dr Ilse Blignault (University of New South Wales) and Prof Colvin Goonaratna (University of Colombo).
The objectives of this workshop were that after completing the seminar and course, participants should be able to;
- Apply the principles, theory and processes of qualitative research
- Discuss the contribution of qualitative research methods in health
- Use different qualitative health research methods, and the concept of triangulation
- Critically evaluate a qualitative health research study
- Design a qualitative health study, including ethical aspects
- Apply the principles of scientific paper writing.
The workshop consisted of a 1-day open seminar on the first day to give an overview on qualitative research methods in which about 100 participants took part. This was followed by a 3-day short course for small groups of about 40 participants to further extend the use of qualitative research methods.
Topics include:
- Qualitative approaches in health research
- Theory and design issues
- Ethical issues
- Qualitative methods of data collection
- Analysis, interpretation and presentation of qualitative data, including writing for publication
- Critical appraisal of qualitative research studies
There was a wide range of participation which included senior academics and young researchers from both academic and clinical institutions as well as senior academics and researchers from the medical faculties in Sri Lanka, representatives from the Ministry of Health and young graduates from Sri Lanka and other foreign medical schools.
Feedback and follow up
All participants appreciated the knowledge and skills they developed in this new research method. Most of them wanted to be involved with qualitative studies to gain more experience and it was suggested to establish a forum for qualitative researches to gain more knowledge and continue these activities.
After discussing with WHO, Sri Lanka who appreciated this initiative, five proposals on qualitative studies were requested to help these participants gain further training. Dr Blignault agreed to provide further advice to these participants to complete these tasks successfully.
The ECN membership launching programme was also highly successful that day and many participants applied for ECN membership.
This workshop was made possible with funding obtained from APACPH, World Health Organization Sri Lanka and the University of Colombo.
The main workshop of this programme will be held in Saitama, Japan in November this year.
