The article by Peek et al. sheds light on the perceived systemic discrimination of African-American patients in medical facilities but does not provide conclusive and applicable results. The study focuses on communication barriers, including lower shared decision-making attitudes from physicians and less time overall spent on patient/doctor encounters. The study’s limitations, however, put its scientific value into question.
The study results are inconsistent due to the selected approach and limited sample size. The study focused on the personal experiences of a small local group of African-American patients, primarily elderly females, not allowing for generalizing the results to a broader African-American population. Utilizing a purposeful sample of patients may have influenced biased respondents’ unbalanced inclusion (or exclusion). The study did not explore various sociodemographic factors influencing patient/provider communication (Bergen & Labonté, 2019). As such, the study cannot be considered of considerable scientific value, emphasizing future research into the topic.
Considering purely qualitative studies as reliable scientific evidence is questionable for several reasons. Such studies contain a limited sample size due to the complications associated with in-depth personal communication. Various factors may influence the respondents’ answers, effectively nullifying a study’s scientific value. For example, in the study by Peek et al. (2010), one-on-one encounters and group discussions could have yielded conflicting results due to sociopolitical and interpersonal factors. Biases and memory flaws could also influence the responses significantly.
The study indicates the inherent flaws of the purely qualitative approach. Even though the paper itself is well-structured and the methodology is consistent, inherent flaws of the approach put severe limitations. Therefore, combining the qualitative approach with quantitative research tools is necessary to capture a broader and more diverse sample group and to optimize the data analysis and management processes (Queirós et al., 2017). This combined approach has the potential to lead to more precise, conclusive, and widely applicable results.
References
Bergen, N., & Labonté, R. (2019). “Everything Is Perfect, and We Have No Problems”: Detecting and Limiting Social Desirability Bias in Qualitative Research. Qualitative Health Research 30(5), 1–10. Web.
Peek, M. E., Odoms-Young, A., Quinn, M. T., Gorawara-Bhat, R., Wilson, S. C., & Chin, M. H. (2010). Race and shared decision-making: Perspectives of African-Americans with diabetes. Social Science & Medicine, 71(1), 1–9. Web.
Queirós, A., Faria, D., & Almeida, F. (2017). Strengths and limitations of qualitative and quantitative research methods. European Journal of Educational Studies, 3(9), 369–387. Web.