Journal of Qualitative Research in Health Sciences
Volume:3 Issue: 4, 2015

Parents who have children with cerebral palsy are exposed to the complicated care procedures of the afflicted child. Thus, they need support in order to decrease problems in this respect. However, their needs are not sufficiently met. Therefore, this study was conducted to explore barriers to support for parents of children with cerebral palsy.

This qualitative study was conducted in 2011-2012 using content analysis. Purposeful sampling was used to select the participants and continued until data saturation was reached. As a result, 31 participants from among parents of children with cerebral palsy referred to the rehabilitation centers in Tehran, Iran, and experts were selected. The data were collected by in-depth semi-structured interviews and from collected documents, and were analyzed by induction method.

Data analysis results revealed three main categories of organizational barriers (poor institutional coordination and communication, and lack of supportive laws with administrative support), professional barriers (poor teamwork, and lack of professional competency), and family barriers.

Through understanding parent's needs and complementing supportive laws for parents with afflicted children, coordination among supportive organizations, and planning for comprehensive care along with supportive services packages, policy makers and health services managers can help eliminate parent's problems with regard to caring for their children with cerebral palsy.

Diabetes is the most common disease worldwide. The complications of diabetes cause economic damages and decrease patient's and their familie's quality of life. Self-care is an important process in diabetes control. On the other hand, maintaining the blood glucose level at a favorable level is challenging for both the patients and the physician. This is due to systemic and individual barriers of diabetes self-care. Thus, the present study aimed to explore the barriers and incentives for self-care. The present study was conducted as a qualitative study with focus group discussion (FGD) (3 sessions for patients and 3 sessions for health care providers separately). Private interviews were conducted with 25 patients and 5 health care providers until data saturation. The interviews and FGDs were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis method. In analyzing the data, two main themes including barriers and incentives for self-care from the view of patients and health care providers were extracted. Based on the social marketing model, these themes were divided into four subthemes of product, place, price, and promotion. The study subjects specified the different causes of performing or not performing self-care in different areas such as exercise, nutrition, regular medical exams, and appropriate medicine use. The cost and availability of some services, physical barriers and their limitations, nonscientific health care delivery, unsuitable health care services for diabetic patients, and lack of health care packages and guidelines were reported as barriers. Moreover, successful experiences of patients and health care providers, and providing self-care facilities were reported as incentives. Market analysis in diabetes self-care showed that comprehensive and systematic programs for diabetic patient care, management protocol for physicians and specialists, and nutritional recommendation, traditional medicine, and exercise are more beneficial when coordinated with economic power, environmental factors, and beliefs of diabetic patients and literacy promotion.

The success of establishing regular physical activity lies in the way these activities are built into a person's daily life. This study was designed to explore the causal conditions of adolescent girl's tendency toward physical activities.

A qualitative study was conducted by means of semi-structured interviews with 25 participants (16 adolescents, 7 mothers, and 2 fathers). The interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

The theme of "the pursuit of excellence" with subthemes of "the need for physical health, psychological health, foresight, progress seeking, and desire for superiority and fitness" emerged as causal conditions of adolescent girl's tendency toward physical activities.

In the present study, adolescent girls seeking progress and excellence turned to physical activities. Through a better understanding of the casual conditions of adolescent girl's tendency toward physical activities, we can provide the appropriate context for the formation of exercising habit, and as a result, human health promotion.

Recently, there has been an increasing trend in hookah use. If this trend continues, morbidity and mortality due to smoking will increase dramatically. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the causes of the increasing trend in hookah use in adolescents and youth living in Bushehr, Iran. This qualitative study was performed using qualitative content analysis. The research environment consisted of all public areas and the research population was comprised of all children and youth in Bushehr. The 12 participants were selected using purposive sampling. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews. After gaining the consent of the participants, the interviews were tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data. Data analysis led to the extraction of the 5 main themes of "the influence of culture, media preparation, sensory appeal, mistaken belief, and difficulty of quitting". Hookah use among family and friends, lack of enforcement of laws prohibiting public consumption, lack of awareness and the mistaken belief that it is less harmful than cigarettes, the pleasant fruity smell and taste, not having any alternative healthy pastimes, and social pressure were the most common reasons for the increasing trend of hookah use in Bushehr. These results suggest the need for authorities to view this issue as an important dilemma, and to plan to reduce hookah use and solve this problem using effective methods to educate and inform people.

Equipping individuals with adequate knowledge on health can lead to optimal health outcomes. Scientific reports indicate client's challenges in trusting and accessing formal health information sources. This study was designed to determine the sources of Iranian women's health information. Study samples were selected through purposive sampling and with regarding to the inclusion criteria. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 17 women and using documentation and field notes until data saturation. Data were analyzed continuously and simultaneous with data collection using qualitative content analysis. The 5 central themes of health care professionals, social networks (with 2 sub-categories of peers and social interactions), culture and religion (with 3 sub-categories of religious teachings, traditional medicine information, and experiences of elders and seniors), mass media (with 3 sub-categories of electronic media, print media, and internet), and self-referencing (with 2 sub-categories of self-discovery-intuition and prior experiences) emerged from data analysis. These findings highlighted the need for respecting the cultural and religious beliefs of a community, and also emphasized on client's seeking rights, information needs, and empowerment in employment of formal and informal sources.

Since the concepts of ethics and morality are deeply rooted in professional nursing, upholding such concepts in this sensitive profession would not simply be achieved by developing new codes of ethics. Thus, descriptive researches in different fields capable of exploring latent ethical aspects of the relevant field are deemed essential. Therefore, the main objective of the current research is to explore and identify the ethical components of nurse's behavior towards the persons accompanying the patients at public hospitals of Mashhad, Iran. The current paper is a descriptive research drawing upon the strategy of content analysis. Semi-structured deep interviews were used to collect data, and in order to analyze the collected data, descriptive content analysis was employed. the research population included all the exemplar nurses at public hospitals in Mashhad. The study samples consisted of 14 nurses. The 4 main themes of respect for persons accompanying a patient, informational support, magnanimity, and empathy, and 13 sub-categories emerged from data analysis. As revealed by the findings, virtuous nurses not only felt responsible for the patients, but also for persons accompanying them and their relatives. These nurses had done all in their power to understand the gravity of their situation and console them, and offer them counsel in order to pull through this stressful phase. Moreover, magnanimity towards the persons accompanying the patient was a component, abstracted in this research, which illustrated the virtuous spirit of the nurses.

Acid attacks are undertaken with the intent to harm, disfigure, or kill another individual. In recent years, these attacks have had an increasing trend. Scientific research can provide a more in-depth understanding of this phenomenon. Thus, the present study investigated the nature and dimensions of acid throwing based on victim's experiences. This qualitative study used the grounded theory method according to the approach of Strauss and Corbin. It was initiated by purposeful sampling and continued by applying theoretical sampling. Data saturation was achieved through semi-structured interviews with 12 victims. Data analysis was performed using the method recommended by Strauss and Corbin and was coded in 3 phases of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The main theme of “physical and psychological wounds” emerged as a result of data analysis. The themes of self-recovery, active personal strategies and avoidance at a personal level, family and friends and social support at a medium level, and not accepting structural support also emerged. Living with substance-abusers with behavioral disorders, and lack of problem-solving skills in the face of interpersonal conflicts were shown to be causal conditions of acid attacks. Acid attacks result in physical and psychological wounds in victims. Due to being a multi-dimensional (illness, disability, and victimization) phenomena, it requires a wide range of strategies at different levels.

Integration of theoretical knowledge and nursing practice has led to the creation of four central concepts in nursing including individual, health, nursing, and environment. Currently, greater emphasis is placed on the two concepts of health and care as the core of nursing. Thus, the purpose of the present qualitative study was to explain the concept of clinical care in internal-surgical nursing and its changes through time. This study was part of an extensive grounded theory research on 14 clinical nurses, clinical educators, and nursing students of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. The participants were selected, first, using purposive sampling method, and then, theoretical sampling. Data were collected through individual semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Data were codified using MAXQD 2007 software (VERBI GmbH, Berlin, Germany) and analyzed using grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Data analysis revealed the 3 main themes of "essence of care in internal-surgical nursing", "clinical origin of care", and "the decline in nursing". Moreover, 9 subcategories were extracted; including "clinical essence of internal-surgical nursing", "patient-centered care", "peaceful conscience of nurses", "meeting the basic needs of the patient", "perception of the patient", "specialization", "alienation with role", "detachment from clinical care", and "dependency". Care is the essence of nursing, in particular internal-surgical nursing, and the clinical environment is the care delivery site. The changes and challenges in providing nursing care necessitate the use of moral approaches, such as designing targeted educational programs and a student-centered curriculum, with emphasis on moral conscience.