title: A guide to reading and using systematic reviews of qualitative research.
abstract: There is an increasingly widespread policy momentum to increase patient-centred care and to improve quality of life outcomes within health services. Qualitative research methods are used to elicit in-depth and detailed insights into people's attitudes, beliefs, emotions and experiences-much of which may remain unspoken during clinical encounters. Questions about patients' beliefs and preferences for treatment can be addressed by qualitative research and inform evidence-based strategies for delivering patient-centred care. Systematic reviews of multiple primary qualitative studies bring together findings from different studies to offer new and more comprehensive understandings of social phenomena across various healthcare contexts and populations and are an emerging methodology in the literature including for care in chronic kidney disease. This article will provide a framework for the systematic review of qualitative research so readers can make sense of these study types and use them in clinical care and policy.
authors.affiliation: Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Centre for Kidney Research, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, NSW 2145, Australia.
authors.forename: Allison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tong
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Otago Christchurch, Christchurch, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Suetonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Palmer
authors.affiliation: Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Centre for Kidney Research, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, NSW 2145, Australia.
authors.forename: Jonathan C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Craig
authors.affiliation: Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Epidemiology, Fondazione Mario Negri Sud, S. Maria Imbaro, Italy Diaverum Scientific Office, Lund, Sweden Department of Emergency and Organ Transplantation, University of Bari, Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni F M
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Strippoli
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D006291:Health Policy; D006296:Health Services; D006801:Humans; D018802:Patient-Centered Care / Q000592:standards*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D011788:Quality of Life; D012196:Review Literature as Topic; D013223:Statistics as Topic
keywords: patient-centred care; qualitative research; research methods; systematic review; thematic synthesis