Why do qualitative research?

It should begin to close the gap between the sciences of discovery and implementation

When Eliot asked “Where is the understanding we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”1 he anticipated by half a century the important role of qualitative methodologies in health services research. In this week's journal Catherine Pope and Nick Mays introduce a series of articles on qualitative research that will describe the characteristics, scope, and applications of qualitative methodologies and, while distinguishing between qualitative and quantitative techniques, will emphasise that the two approaches should be regarded as complementary rather than competitive (p 42).2

Qualitative research takes an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject …