SPIDER: AN OPTIMAL FRAMEWORK FOR RETRIEVAL OF BEST QUALITATIVE EVIDENCE (EDITORIAL)

Evidence-based practice, as a new paradigm for healthcare practice and medical education, has become a core competence for the new century healthcare professionals and thereby, it is now possible for healthcare professionals to easily retrieve, critically appraise, and apply evidence from primary and secondary quantitative research. However, despite the increasing growth of qualitative research in the field of healthcare and the importance of the use of evidence from qualitative research in clinical decision-making and practice, the retrieval, appraisal, and application of qualitative evidence have been neglected in the principles of evidence-based practice. This editorial briefly introduces the SPIDER (Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research type) framework as an alternative to the PICO (Population/Problem, Intervention/Exposure, Comparison/Control, Outcome) framework for systematic retrieval of qualitative evidence.