title: [Essential characteristics of qualitative research and its commonly used methods].
abstract: The main objectives of qualitative research lies in exploring the opinion, attitude, behavior, and experience of a person as a social role, also a patient. This essay introduces the basic characteristics of qualitative research, including its natural property, inductive method adopted, open character and wholism concept; the results of qualitative research are presented in a text form; and its commonly used methods include observation, individual interview and focus group discussion.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Evidence-Based Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing. jianping-l@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Hong-wei
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional / Q000379:methods*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012107:Research Design