Critiquing a Qualitative Research Study

Comprehensive Analysis of the Qualitative Study: "Experiences and Needs of Women from Ethnic Minorities in Maternity Healthcare" Your Name Subject and Section Professor’s Name November 24, 2024 The systematic review of Toh and Shorey (2023) titled Experiences and Needs of Women from Ethnic Minorities in Maternity Healthcare synthesizes 22 qualitative studies to elucidate the difficulties and obstacles experienced by ethnic minority women regarding maternity care. Using systematic research and meta-aggregation, the study highlights the following themes: communication, cultural issues, and discrimination before recommending improving maternity policies. This assessment assesses the methodological rigor, credibility, transferability, and relevance of the study according to specific criteria, including research methodology and design, sample, data collection, credibility, and contribution to knowledge. Method (Research Design and Research Tradition) This has been conducted using a more qualitative method, where the systematic review is conducted based on the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) concerning a checklist known as PRISMA. The connection to the research question applied in the design is clear, as it helps to discuss nuanced contextualized experiences of ethnic minority women. Despite not identifying a particular qualitative tradition, the meta-aggregation approach provides for pragmatic aggregation of various viewpoints. This is illustrated by the fact that the analysis is cyclical and includes themes identified during data synthesis. Nevertheless, the researchers' positionality or biases, which would illuminate how such roles may have impacted the analysis of collected data, are discussed sparingly. The design flexibility, based on the analysis of the applicability of the identified methods to diverse data sources, supports the appropriateness of the proposed design for the in-depth examination of the given focal phenomenon. Part of this problem is addressed through the study's focus on reporting systemic prejudice and the call for policy change. Nonetheless, the lack of an outspoken ideology –critical or feminist, for example- could have helped enhance the study's ability to disrupt power relations in healthcare systems. For instance, the authors mention examples of prejudice and ethnocentrism and discuss them without referring to the general political environment. The design efficiently provides exhaustive information about the problems, yet its link to an ideological point of view remains latent. Sample and Setting The present study provides data with 22 articles covering 1,134 EM women and children across various contexts, primarily in high-income countries like the UK, USA, and Australia. Using African American, Muslim, and Latina women increases the study's transferability because it includes diverse ethnicities. However, the findings cannot be generalized to the entire world due to the exclusion of many low- and middle-income countries home to the vast majority of patients. The sampling techniques used in all the studies are purposive and snowball sampling, which are common in qualitative studies because of their ability to provide depth of information rather than width. This study indicates that saturation has been reached based on the various themes and sub-themes established in this study. Demographic information about the participants, such as age, eth group, and economic status, is reported in the study, enabling an evaluation concerning the generalization of the findings. However, as outlined below, parts of the study, which are the setting circumstances, which include health care systems or cultures of respective societies, could be more well described, which precludes the reader from understanding the whole situation well enough. Experiences of maternity care...