title: Making the case for a qualitative study of medical errors in primary care.
abstract: In the interest of publicizing examples of funded qualitative health research, the authors share a proposal to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in Washington, D.C., in which they sought to elicit patient stories of preventable problems in their primary health care that were associated with psychological or physical harms. These stories would allow for the construction of a tentative typology of errors and harms as experienced by patients and the contrasting of this with errors and harms reported by primary care physicians in the United States and other countries. The authors make explicit the anticipated concerns of reviewers more accustomed to quantitative research proposals and the arguments and strategies employed to address them.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Practice, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA.
authors.forename: Anton J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Kuzel
authors.forename: Steven H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Woolf
authors.forename: John D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Engel
authors.forename: Valerie J
authors.initials: VJ
authors.lastname: Gilchrist
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Frankel
authors.forename: Thomas A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: LaVeist
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vincent
mesh_terms: D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D019300:Medical Errors; D033262:Narration; D010358:Patient Participation; D017712:Peer Review, Research; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D012107:Research Design / Q000592:standards; D014481:United States