title: Using Sandelowski and Barroso's Meta-Synthesis Method in Advancing Qualitative Evidence.
abstract: The purpose of this article was to iteratively account for and discuss the handling of methodological challenges in two qualitative research syntheses concerning patients' experiences of hospital transition. We applied Sandelowski and Barroso's guidelines for synthesizing qualitative research, and to our knowledge, this is the first time researchers discuss their methodological steps. In the process, we identified a need for prolonged discussions to determine mutual understandings of the methodology. We discussed how to identify the appropriate qualitative research literature and how to best conduct exhaustive literature searches on our target phenomena. Another finding concerned our status as third-order interpreters of participants' experiences and what this meant for synthesizing the primary findings. Finally, we discussed whether our studies could be classified as metasummaries or metasyntheses. Although we have some concerns regarding the applicability of the methodology, we conclude that following Sandelowski and Barroso's guidelines contributed to valid syntheses of our studies.
authors: Randers Regional Hospital, Randers, Denmark metspl@rm.dk.
authors: Mette S
authors: MS
authors: Ludvigsen
authors: Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors: Elisabeth O C
authors: EO
authors: Hall
authors: Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.
authors: Gabriele
authors: G
authors: Meyer
authors: University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway.
authors: Liv
authors: L
authors: Fegran
authors: Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors: Hanne
authors: H
authors: Aagaard
authors: Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.
authors: Lisbeth
authors: L
authors: Uhrenfeldt
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D010360:Patient Transfer / Q000458:organization & administration*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012107:Research Design
keywords: meta-synthesis; qualitative analysis; qualitative research synthesis; research design; systematic reviews