Symposium : Clinical Epidemiology and Research Methods-II

Quantitative Vs Qualitative Research Methods

M. L a k s h m a n , Leena Sinha, Moumita Biswas, Maryann Charles and N.K. Arora

Department of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

Abstract. Quantitative methods have been widely used because of the fact that things that can be measured or counted gain scientific credibility over the unmeasurable. But the extent of biological abnormality, severity, consequences and the impact of illness cannot be satisfactorily captured and answered by the quantitative research alone. In such situations qualitative methods take a holistic perspective preserving the complexities of human behavior by addressing the "why" and "how" questions. In this paper an attempt has been made to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of both the methods and also that a balanced mix of both qualitative as well as quantitative methods yield the most valid and reliable results. [Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 2000; 67 (5) : 369-377]

Key words : Qualitative research; Quantitative research; Strength; Limitations

The almost sole recognition given t ~ quantitative methods has trained students inadequately, established flawed standards of practice and research, and delayed the development of essential medical knowledge. When qualitative methods are clearly established in our research repertoire, the advance of medical knowledge will be gready accelerated1. Aetiological and health services research is dominated by quantitative methods. Research tends to be considered real and serious only when it uses these approaches somuch so that quantification has acquired a bogus value - if something can be measured or counted, it gains a scientific credibility often not applicable to the unmeasured or unmeasurable. Because of this, a finding is more likely to be accepted as a fact if it has been quantified than if it has not. On occasions, our affinity with numbers goes even further. Sometimes, we may suspend our critical faculties when facedwith quantitative information, whether derived from routine or ad hoc sources. As a result, many well known, widely accepted "facts" of doubtful accuracy have become entrenched in our supposed knowledge of health, disease, and health care, such as that one couple in ten is infertile, one hospital bed in ten in the USA is for intensive care, and the prevalence of coronary heart disease initially rose and is now declining. The scientific bases for all these claims are doubtfuP. Objective results were defined as those which were reproducible in the experience of others and which could predict future events under similar circumstances. Because
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Narendra K. Arora, Additional Professor, Department of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi-110 029 Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 2000; 67 (5)

of the complexity of natural events (e.g. chemical and physical reactions, inheritance of characteristics, growth and development) a dominant method in the quest for objectivity was reductionism 3. Reductionism seeks, by reducing the number of reactants of variables in a study to the minimum to obtain incontrovertible information about a given material or interaction, and hence achieve objectivity. These approaches have come to be known as quantitative research. As scientific inquiry became more widely valued, it was applied outside natural science to important social, cultural, psychological and economic issues 1. Quantitative methods examine the effects of specified circumstances (independent variable) on an outcome of interest (dependent variable) in ways that can be expressed numerically. In these settings, causal inferences are drawn either from direct observation, as in true experiments, or from associations established through statistical analysis. They are most effective when the content is so constrained or controlled that the study events are free of any undefined influence. Under those circumstances, reproducibility is high and the results are likely to predict, reliably, the outcome of the same event in future. There should be no doubt about the enormous accomplishments of reductionist strategies and methods penetrating i n f o r m a t i o n about the f u n d a m e n t a l components of biological systems and their functional potentials. They have also yielded important diagnostic and therapeutic tools. But it is also undeniable that conventional biomedical research has not provided decisive information about the origins or management of the most prevalent contemporary medical problems, namely,
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chronic illnesses. Chronic illness, which consists Of the chronic biological abnormality (the disease) and its consequences (discomfort, disability, emotional distress, limited social function) unfolds over time. The extent of the biological abnormality and of the various consequences determines the severity and impact of the illness which quantitative research alone cannot satisfactorily capture and answer 1. Survey research now dominates socioeconomic investigations for national p l a n n i n g and program evaluation in the developing countries. Data can be quantified and aggregate results presented concisely. Sophisticated statistical methods can be used to assess relationships between the variables measured. In addition, surveys are fairly easy to design and quick to implement. Questionnaire forms are often standardized, thereby increasing the reliability, comparability, and precision of data from one region or time frame to another 4"s. Nevertheless, some of the scholars are quite open in their criticism of the use of surveys in the third world. Chen and Murray6 have devised the following descriptive definition "A rural third world survey is the careful collection, tabulation, and analysis of wild guesses, halftruths, and outright lies meticulously recorded by gullible outsiders during interviews with suspicious, intimidated, but outwardly compliant villagers". Another instance is chronic illness creating disabilities, discomforts and accumulating costs. Because it cannot be cured, it must be managed, and most management practices have both benefits and flaws.The study of chronic disease is replete with issues for which qualitative methods are pertinent. In chronic illness patient's understanding of the illness can be a crucial determinant to the designing of a treatment program and its success7. In these diverse settings, an explanation of events can almost certainly not be obtained without inquiry into the perceptions, attitudes and behaviors of those who are involved.

Limitations of Quantitative Research

Quantitative data, no matter how rigorously collected, is still vulnerable. Even routine mortality data can be misleading. The internationally reported infant mortality rate for France is an underestimate as it excludes neontal deaths in babies weighing less than 500g at birth as these are defined as stillbirths. Imprecision in defining the cause of death has rendered much observational quantitative research on coronary heart disease suspect s'9. The current belief that mortality from coronary heart disease has declined by about 30% in several developed countries may simply reflect secular changes in diagnostic choices just as the earlier supposed rise in incidence may have been an artefact. Meanwhile, both supposed "facts" have influenced the direction of research on the prevention of the disease 2. No matter how well a questionnaire has been developed, pretested and revised, some respondents may have problems of recall; some may misunderstand a question; a questionnaire topic may be too sensitive; a respondent might knowingly lie to project a desired image or because he or she fears a negative consequence of a truthful response. A pervasive problem, particularly in rural areas of developing countries, is that respondents answer what that they presume the interviewer wishes to hear, a problem sometimes referred to as "courtesy bias ''1~ Campbell and his collegues 11 were involved in an intensive cross-checking of data obtained from a fertility and KAP family planning survey in Nepal and reported that the survey errors on many topics were quite high thus questioning the analytical and policy conclusions that have been based on such studies. However, the errors uncovered for some other topics were nominal or insignificant. The plausible explanations, as have emerged from casual conversations and unstructured interviews, are presented below. Their survey recorded far higher levels qf awareness
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Quantitative Research C a n n o t A n s w e r A l l Problems! In relation to medicine, the results pertaining to an individual in even the best controlled therapeutic trial may be quite different from the average results pertaining to the group. This truism simply reflects the commonly recognized error of attributing to an individual, those properties which apply collectively to a group, and its relevance is pervasive in medical research. Yet the truism does not accurately characterize the complexity of either medical research or practice. Medicine is also concerned with group results. Clinicians know that one cannot understand a patient without knowing both the general attributes of the disease state (e.g. cancer, obstructive lung disease) and the particulars of the patient's disease and illness. The critical need is to understand where generality ends and individuality begins, and that requires merging the two types of knowledge. However, only general knowledge is revealed by randomized clinical trials, and then also in aggregate form, devoid of the informative clinical richness of a mosaic of individual patternsk
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of contraceptive measures including abortion and family planning services than were recorded in the Nepal Fertility Survey or in the comparable FP/MCH survey12.This was found to be due to the use of high sounding words which were not familiar to the rural folk. These linguistic problems remain in a questionnaire even after pretesting and "back translations" into English. Some questoinnaire items were not merely misunderstood, but were consistently reinterpreted in terms of respondents' social and cultural values, a problem inherent in survey research itself. This problem and its manifestation is referred as "contextual bias". People respond not to the formal content of a question but to the meaning (the connotations and associations). A case in point from their study concerns the initial question on abortion. Since abortion is considered by the Nepalese Hindu and Buddhist traditions to be a religious sin, many respondents felt awkward or insulted by the question "Have you heard of abortion?" and fended it off with a negative response. To publicly admit to knowing much about abortion would suggest that one may have oneself participated in this sinful behavior 12. As a general rule they found that respondents tended to interpret most questions personally and assumed that the question was designed to elicit details of their personal experience. For example, the question "Do you know where to go for family planning services?" was interpreted as "Do you go there?" or in a more general sense, "Just how much do you personally know about sexual matters anyway?" A better way of putting the same query would have been "Where do other people who take pills, use condoms or undergo operations go for family planning?" Women who reported little knowledge of family planning were not able to respond to these questions because the interviewers were either males, strangers or other relatives and neighbours were present at the time. Many rural people will fend offinterview questions about family planning because, regardless of their actual behavior in private, it is culturally unacceptable for them. There are a number of norms, values and social institutions that reward abundant fertility and punish childlessness or low fertility13,14. of study may vary from a particular behavior to the function of a complex institution. Investigators are concerned with the beliefs, motivations and actions of people, organizations or institutions. Investigative methods include structured or open ended interviews, external observation or observation by participation, and interpretation of written material. Classical examples are anthropological studies of a culture, sociological studies of an institution and psychological studies of a behavior; in many ways, the clinical practice of medicine is another example. As a general rule, practitioners o f quantitative investigations, particularly natural scientists have looked upon ~lualitative inquiry as less rigorous or objective, less generalizable, and hence less meritorious 1. Qualitative methods are most revealing when contextual forces are ill-defined, uncontrolled or situational.This distinction emphasizes that understanding is not synonymous with universality or predictability; the three may accord, but often an accurate understanding of an event or an outcome is idiosyncratic and time bound*. The focus may range from a single individual or small group, such as the interaction between a health professional and a patient, to the functioning of a large organization, such as a hospital. In essence it is research that helps us to understand the nature, strengths, and interactions of variables. Like quantitative research, qualitative research can address*causation and involves observation and interpretation of events. Unlike quantitative research, it seeks to answer "what" and not the "how often" question. Thus, rather than adopting a simplified, reductionist view of the subject in order to measure and count the occurrence of state or events, qualitative methods take a holistic perspective which preserves the complexities of human behavior .9.

What is Qualitative Research? Qualitative inquiry applies to situations where relevant variables producing an outcome are not apparent or where the number of subjects or outcomes under study are insufficient for statistical analysis 15'Is. Subjects may vary in size from an individual to large groups, and the focus
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S y n t h e s i s of Q u a n t i t a t i v e and Q u a l i t a t i v e Research Methods We can benefit enormously from the quantification of many aspects of the physical, social and psychological worlds. Indeed, it is the undeniable importance of quantitative enquiry that makes the need for improvements in its conduct so crucial. This can be achieved in three ways. First, by the development of more sophisticated statistical methods for handling quantitative data. Second, by using quantitative and qualitative methods in combination. And third, by acknowledging that some situations are inevitably beyond the scope of quantitative methods but could be investigated more appropriately by qualitative methods 2.
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In the last few years there has been considerable interest in encouraging doctors to audit their work. To promote this, many quantitative surveys were carried out to find out the views of doctors. Needless to say, when confronted with close ended questions on audit, most responded in the politically correct way and stated that they were in favour of peer review and other such noble ideals. Meanwhile, observational reports showed that little or no audit was taking place. The apparent contradiction between intent and action was explained by a qualitative enquiry involving detailed interviews with doctors of all grades and observations of clinical meetingsz~ This revealed 19 reasons why doctors were uncertain or unsupportive of audit, most of which had not been addressed in the previous quantitative studies. It suggested that unless the underlying anxieties and concerns were addressed, the introduction and acceptance of audit would continue to be unsuccessful2. Quantitative methods work best when there is a minimum of dependent variables, all under the control of the investigator, and w h e n the subjects are b o t h homogenous and passive. The problems we have been discussing in medicine arise when circumstances are different e.g. variables are diverse, only some variables are known to the investigator or are measurable, and heterogenous subjects are actively pursuing their lives in a changing environment while the study proceeds. Here, understanding the nature, strengths and interactions of the variables is usually essential. Qualitative research methods, by providing access to potentially crucial information which otherwise must be surmised by the investigator, can yield the essential understanding. They are, therefore, central and complementary components in the investigator's arsenal of toolsk Quantitative and qualitative methods can be employed sequentially or simultaneously in a single study. As an example of sequential use - when an unexplained quantitative outcome is obtained from a study, the participants can be approached to elicit an explanation and an instrument designed to test the stated reasons. Application of the instrument yields another set of quantitative data which may affirm or refute the accuracy of the reasons for the group as a whole. Current trends in clinical social science and in medical anthropolgy argue for the relevance of ethnographic research methods in the study of problems presented in primary care settings. Grounded in the experience of everyday life, qualitative methods are suited to interpreting
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the semantics of h u m a n experience 2''22, the social determinants of cultural meanings 7, and the processes of individual and social change ~3. In addition, the qualitative methods also permit the research to be data backed, particularly with regard to bodily and health related experiences and to the natural history of illness, health and disease experiences24. Quantitative results can be misleading because insufficient attention might be paid to the way" the data were created e.g. how variables were defined, the extent of adherence to those definitions, and how the data were collected. Used in combination, qualitative methods can help to improve the accuracy and relevance of quantitative studies by increasing our understanding of the creation of quantitative data, an activity known as ethnostatistics 2. Qualitative methods supplement and complement the understandings revealed by quantitative methods and are also a fertile source of hypotheses for future inquiries of both types. Despite the distinctions between the two methodological approaches, both possess structures and means of evaluating results which, when applied correctly, are rigorous 15'25~6.In recent years, the discipline of clinical epidemiology has established the decisive importance of analyzing and evaluating clinical practice. Appropriate inclusion of qualitative modes of enquiry will greatly enhance the process. True understanding in medicine cannot be achieved without adding qualitative methods to the research arsenal. And it reiterates a canon of sound investigation, i.e. the methods employed should befit the question asked and not vice versa. Following a decline in the prevalence of breast feeding in the 1950s and 1960s (to 50-60% of mothers), Australia experienced an increase in the 1970s and 1980s, so that recent studies claim prevalence of 80% or more of breast feeding amongst mothers leaving hospitals.The incidence and duration of breast feeding in Australia are amongst the highest for western industrialized nations and higher than many developing countries. However, there is concern at current levels of cessation of breast feeding; only about 50% of Australian women are still breast feeding at 3 months. This pattern of high incidence of breast feeding in hospitals, followed by a rather dramatic decline in the first three months of the babies' lives, has been revealed by a series of quantitative studies ~7. However, ethnographic studies were conducted subsequently, looking at the issue from a cultural perspective. These revealed that the experience of

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Quantitative Vs Qualitative Research Methods

' i n s u f f i c i e n t milk' was related to the m o t h e r ' s misinterpretation of the normal physiological changes in the breasts, or changes in the baby's behavior to a diminution in milk supply. The productionist model suggests thatthey feel anxious about their ability to meet production targets. Women's breasts are a powerful symbol of female sexuality; women have ambiguous feelings about their use for an instrumentalist purpoc,e.They feel subjected to pressure from their husbands who are jealous of the baby's claims on their body. In a society; which stresses personal autonomy and individualism, the demands of the nursing infant are at odds with a women's quest for autonomy. It may be" insuflqdent milk', drawing as it does on the productionist and mechanical metaphors of the body prevalent in medical discourse, providing a socially acceptable response by women who wish to discontinue breast feeding for other reasons. Lastly, more intensive qualitative field work methods could be of assistance to a survey, precisely because these methods are adapted to cross-cultural research and to the positive use of context in the study of human behavior. These qualitative methods could be used to provide guidelines for survey designs, to provide a means of checking and measuring non sampling errors, and to obtain data on topics for which the survey m e t h o d is inappropriate. because there is no scientific value in interviewing or observing people just for the sake of it. There is need to understand the appropriateness of an approach and utilize the appropriate research method suited to the research question. There is always a need for training before initiating the study so as to bring about a c o m m o n understanding among the investigators by taking collective decisions. This definitely helps to resolve the differences in opinion which inevitably emerge if the procedures are unfamiliar. In large scale studies covering areas with different languages, different translation procedures are a major source of introducing error in the stud)~ Therefore, a common procedure may be adopted. Similar procedures adopted for field work and data processing reduce the chance of variability due to individual bias. Greater involvement of principal investigators in the field activities acts as a quality check. The study design, specific topics and the moderator guidelines for conducting the session or interviews maximize common features while remaining sensitive to the cultures of the specific societies. There is a contrast in selection of study setting and statistical sampling of quantitative and qualitative research. A truly r a n d o m sample is vital for quantitative studies to ensure that the results reflect, on average, the condition of the population from which the sample was drawn. But in qualitative research the preference is towards developing an understanding of the experiences of the individual or group thereby gaining in-depth knowledge of a particular issue by deliberately selecting individuals. It is important to recognize the researcher's perspective. In qualitative research, there is no way of avoiding or fully controlling the observer bias 2s. Thus, in-depth interviews or focus group discussions should preferably be tape recorded, fully transcribed, and accurately translated. This bias call be further m i n i m i z e d if the researcher details where the researchers are coming from so that the results can be interpreted accordingly. Methodology for collection of data and a detailed description of these methods needs to be given for both types of study designs. T h e quantitative methodology, although extensive, may be summed up into a single sentence giving reference to a standard text but the qualitative methods cannot bo written in
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Methods of Qualitative Research Qualitative sociocultural field methods provide the "emic' observations (an insider's view) because of the sustained interaction of the researcher with the people being studied in their own language and in their own territory. Objective descriptions are drawn t h r o u g h m e t h o d s such as participant observation, life histories, content analysis and open-ended interviews. Qualitative methods also offer strong validity checks regarding the knowledge, beliefs, practices and life events of people. Some commonly used qualitative methods are listed in Table 1 along with their characteristic features. Ensuring Quality in Qualitative Research Qualitative or quantitative research methods are not complete in themselves and cannot answer the questions fully. However, there should be quality checks which would make the data valid as well as reliable. The following quality checks must be incorporated in qualitative studies.
Reason for the research and clearly formulated questions should be stated before starting a study: This needs to be taken care of in qualitative studies as well
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M. Lakshman et al. TABLE 1. Common Qualitative Research Methods with their Characteristic Features Participant observation 9 Method where investigator is not merely a detached observer of the lives and activities of the
people under study but is also a participant in their round of daily activities. It is a key method by which the researcher can discover the relationship between knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP). Interviews and self adntniste~d ~ only providethe researcher with information about what pesple say they do, which has a variable rs4alJomhip to what they may

actually do.

Key informant Interview

9 The researcher may also have a small number of individuals from whom he/she can obtain a large amount of detailed information about particular topics or the general life of the community. 9 It is used to best advantage when it is closely linked with participant observation or other methods. The researcher needs to be able to assess the informant's status within the group under study. 9 It reveals what people think and feel, how they see events and the world around them. Interviews are type of conversations that are used to check data obtained from participant observation, to gather information about a community, and to obtain specific information about beliefs and behavior. 9 During informal interviews, the questions are usually open-ended, allowing the respondent to speak hisiher mind on the subject under discussion. 9 Advantage of informal interview techniques are when we are initiating a study and trying to learn about the behavior, beliefs and attitudes of people in a community. 9 The disadvantage of informal interview is that if the informant is not responding to set questions, it is difficult to compare and evaluate answers given by other informants. 9 The questions should be carefully tested and screened in advance followed by rewording or dropping the questions that bring ambiguous responses. 9 With constraints on time and budget resources for developing community programs it is necessary to gather qualitative data in a relatively rapid manner. 9 It may not provide a thorough analysis of local socio~ultural systems but gives the basic information about attitudes and approaches to health care services. 9 Focus group discussion is one of the methods where the participants talk with each other under the guidance of a facilitator. The purpose is to obtain in-depth information on concepts, perceptions and ideas of the group on specific topics. 9 The confidence, credibility, generalisability and degree of causal inference associated with findings from qualitative methods can be increased, and at the same time the validity and understanding of experimental methods can be enhanced if beth approaches are combined in the same study. 9 e.g. integrating the subject selection criteria of a case-control design with qualitative inquiry techniques for illuminating risk factors is referred to as "qualitative case-control". In this design the researcher selects subjects from opposing and extreme groups based on their scores on a behavioral continuum heavy drinkers of alcohol and those who abstain from drinking. This extreme or deviant case sampling technique constructs two groups quantitatively to represent contrasting characteristics on the outcome variable. 9 There have been calls for studies to expand existing understanding by identifying the underlying social and cultural determinants of the maintenance of different social behaviors. 9 An understanding of the socially and culturally determined assumptions and expectations surrounding such issues would seem to have the potential to further our understanding on them, in the context of changing social, economic and technological environment. 9 A cross sectional study is usually a simple description of the prevalence of demographic characteristics as well as health behaviom and attitudes or experiences with health services. Such studies are also known as prevalence studies or surveys. 9 The objective is usually to estimate the magnitude of a problem in a defined "target' population. 9 Cross sectional studies may provide etiologic clues' or generate etiologic hypothesis, and more complex studies will have to be pedormed to test such hypothesis. Thus the survey may be used to obtain cases and controls for case control studies. 9 Cross sectional studies have the advantage of being carried out in relatively shnrt duration. Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 2000; 67 (5)

Structured, openended interview

Focus group discussion (FGD)

Qualitative casecontrol research design

Qualitative contrasting groups

Qualitative longitudinal design

Qualitative crosssectional design

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shorthand or be referred to someone else's research technique. It is usually lengthy and discursive and in its absence the results cannot be interpreted. To standardize the methodology a practical manual may be developed. This minimizes the chances of some field workers resorting to short cuts in some of the recommended field work procedures like recruiting the subjects. It is essential to understand what methods were used by the researcher to analyze the data and the quality assurance measures applied. The data analysis section of qualitative research readily distinguishes sense from non-senseaS. It is not enough to present some quotes but the researcher must find a systematic way of analyzing the data and seek examples of cases which appear to contradict or challenge the theories derived from majority. In theory, data needs to be analyzed by more than one researcher to confirm that they are assigning the same meaning to the data. To increase the reliability of the analysis and to ensure accountability of the data, common procedures are to be followed during analysis as during field work. For interpreting transcripts and comparing results with external evidence, team approach is better than using some special computer sofrware. The transcripts need to be monitored for completeness from the tape recorded version for minimizing the loss of valuable data. The credibility and the clinical importance of the results needs to be established. Credibility cannot be assessed through precision and accuracy of measuring devices, nor can the significance of results via confidence intervals and numbers needed to treat, but a little more than c o m m o n sense is required to understand that the results are sensible and believable, and they actually matter in practice. Another aspect of such results is to check whether authors cite actual data or not.To improve the credibilit~ verbatim quotes are reproduced which are indexed and can be traced back to an identifiable source. The verification process is greatly facilitated by code mapping and retrieval. 'Code mapping' is the process of reading through the transcripts and m a r k i n g segments o f text corresponding to the issues of interest and any related concepts. The reliability of analysis can be improved by two or more researchers going through the same transcript and resolving the differences, if any. Most team members may u n d e r e s t i m a t e how demanding the data analysis would be in terms of time and also because of unfamiliarity with the procedures.
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So they should ideally be involved at the data analysis stage as well. The conclusions drawn from the data and the interpretation of results differ according to the research approach adopted. Quantitative research clearly distinguishes the study results so that the reader can easily differentiate between what the researcher found and what they think it means while such a distinction is rarely possible in qualitative research where results are, by definition an interpretation of the data. Thus, when assessing the validity of qualitative research it is necessary to understand whether the interpretation of data accords with the common sense and personal or cultural perspective although it is difficult because the language we use to describe things sometimes tends to assign meanings and motives which the subjects may not share. To prove that results of the research are "grounded in ev/dence" the following questions may be useful:

How well does this analysis explain why people behave in the way they do? How comprehensible would this explanation be to a though~eulparticipant in the setting? How well does the explanation cohere with what we already know?
Future Strategies

As health cape providers are increasingly expected to provide health promotion advice, not simply disease prevention counsel 29, it will be necessary for them to understand the meaning and social significance of their patients' life styles. Frequent use of qualitative methods will greatly enhance both aetiological and health services research. Failure to use has curbed the advance in medical knowledge and at times led to false trails being followed partly because of scepticism on the part of quantitative scientists about the objectivity and rigor of qualitative methods. While this view may be justified occasionally its is not a valid reason for ignoring the potential use of qualitative methods. As the statistician Turkey~~ pointed out, "far better an approximate answer to the right question than an exact answer to the wrong question". If such advice is ignored we run the risk of pursuing the measurable rather than the relevant. This would have consequences on our understanding of both the causes of diseases and how to improve health services. Good clinical thought requires recognition of the coexistence of generality and individuality. Similarly, good medical research requires recognizing the complementarity
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and inter-penetration of quantitative and qualitative methods of inquiry. When qualitative methods are clearly established in our research repertoire, the advance of medical knowledge will be greatly acceleratedL Human beings live in complex socio-cultural and religious environments. The intentions and behavior of individuals are further influenced by the economic consequences of the behavior. Hence health care practices, compliance to short or long term therapies and to existing and new technology will all be complex decisions which cannot be assessed through quantitative questionnaire or survey methodology alone. The key questions in all these situations are "why" and "how". Thus if we are interested to know why a mother does not start weaning her child by 6 months of age, how family planning services can be made more acceptable, and why a tuberculosis patient becomes irregular with his treatment in 6-12 weeks time, then the answer qualitative methodolog~ Similarl)~ the determinants of client Utilization behavior for various public health programs should preferably be investigated in depth through qualitative appraisal techniques. In this way, workable hypotheses that explain the client behavior are generated. These can be field tested through quantitative methods with adequate sample of respondents. It is deplorable that poor quality qualitative papers now appear regularly in some medical journals whose editors have climbed on the qualitative bandwagon without gaining an ability to appraise such papers 2s. Methods like focus groups should not be added as a mere sideline to a comparative basic research project simply because it has become a la mode to include a qualitative data collection component3].
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T H E M I I I F N N I U M A N D M E D I C I N E : T H E 1 0 M O S T I N F L U E N T I A L PERSONS No. 10: Sigmund Freud ( 1 8 5 6 - 1 9 3 9 ) - considered the founder of psychoanalysis he believed that a complex of repressed and forgotten expressions underlies all abnormal mental states and that infantile mental processes are important in later development. No. 9: Wilhelm Rontgen ( 1 8 4 5 - 1 9 2 3 ) - discoverer of X-rays in 1895 and Nobel Prize winner in physics in 1901. The value of X-rays in the diagnosis and treatment was recognised and accepted almost from the outset of their discovery. No. 8: Karl Landsteiner ( 1 8 6 8 - 1 9 4 3 ) - called the "father of blood grouping" - a concept without which blood transfusion would not be possible. In 1901, he showed that there are at IGast 3 major types of blood. Landsteiner was awarded the Noble Prize for his work in 1930. No. 7: Edward J e n n e r ( 1 7 4 9 - 1 8 2 3 ) - introduced the inoculation for smallpox at the end of the 18th century which is considered one of the greatest triumphs in the history of medicine. No. 6: Marie Curie ( 1 8 6 7 - 1 9 3 4 ) -discovered radioactivity and was given the Nobel Prize in 1903. The discovery formed the basis of radiation therapy. In 1911, she was again conferred the Nobel Prize in chemistry for her discovery of radium and polonium. No. 5: Francis Crick ( 1 9 1 6 - ) and J a m e s Watson ( 1 9 2 8 - ) - accredited with determining the molecular structure of DNA, the chemical substrate of heredity, which is regarded as the most important discovery of the 20th century in Medicine and Science. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962 sharing it with Maurice Wilkins (1916). Currently, Crick is associated with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego while Watson is the director of the Cold Spring Harbor lab in southeastern New York. No. 4: G r e g o r Mendel ( 1 8 2 2 - 1 8 4 4 ) - formulated the laws of heredity. Mendel's work laid the mathematical foundation of the science of genetics. No. 3: Rudolf Virchow ( 1 8 2 1 - 1 9 0 2 ) - founded Cellular pathology. His concept that the basis of disease is the cell, the essential functional and structural unit of the body, was of monumental importance as a basis for understanding the cause, the process and the results of the disease. No. 2: Robert Koch ( 1 8 4 3 - 1 9 1 0 ) - the first to isolate the anthrax bacillus (1876). In 1883, he published a method of preventive inoculation against this disease, in 1882 he announced the discovery of tubercle bacillus and in 1883, he discovered the cause of cholera. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1905. No. 1: Louis Pasteur ( 1 8 2 2 - 1 8 9 5 ) - proposed the "germ theory". He first associated a specific microorganism (bacillus) with a specific disease (anthrax). He developed the method of pasteurisation - a heating process that kills bacteria in milk, wine and other liquids. He was also a pioneer in stereochemistry. Abstracted from: Mayo Clin Proc 2000; Vol. 7 5 : 1 1 9 - 1 2 1
Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 2000; 67 (5) 377