PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND GASTROENTEROLOGY

IntroductionQualitative research includes a range of methodologies seeking to capture views of patients and practitioners on clinical interventions, and their acceptability and effectiveness in the real world. The lack of qualitative research in clinical journals, such as the BMJ, is recognised as a major concern by sections of the research community.1 No data is available on the existence of a similar issue in GI research. We seek to determine the number of original qualitative studies (including mixed-methods) published in the top 10 GI journals, ranked according to the SCImago Journal Rank, a measure of the scientific influence of journals accounting for both citations and prestige, and identify whether qualitative research in GI is conducted in the UK, based on UK Clinical Research Network (CRN) data.MethodAn advanced Pubmed search was conducted in May 2021, using a validated search strategy including a combination of terms such as ‘interview’, ‘qualitative’ and ‘experience’,2 to identify qualitative studies published between 2000-2021 in the top 10 GI journals. The UK CRN database was interrogated to identify actively recruiting GI studies which include qualitative methods on the NIHR portfolio.ResultsWe identified 30 journal articles using qualitative methodologies, predominantly semi-structured interviews(73%), published over 21 years in the top 10 GI journals, accounting for less than 0.1% of all published original studies. The range varied between 0-10, with a median of 2.5 articles/journal. No journal explicitly excluded qualitative research studies in their scope of publication. In contrast, we identified 10 GI studies using qualitative methods out of 126(8%) active GI studies on the UK CRN portfolio.ConclusionQualitative research is poorly represented in the top 10 GI journals, though high quality GI research using qualitative methods are more commonly conducted, based on UK CRN data. This discrepancy may imply a bias against acceptance of qualitative research by journal editors and reviewers from the top 10 GI journals or a reluctance by investigators to submit qualitative articles to these journals. This gap raises concerns regarding the lack of patients’ and practitioners’ views on clinical interventions (best captured using qualitative methods) in these journals.ReferencesGreenhalgh T, Annandale E, et al. An open letter to The BMJ editors on qualitative research. BMJ 2016 Feb 10;352. Booth A. Searching for qualitative research for inclusion in systematic reviews: a structured methodological review. Systematic Reviews 2016 Dec;5(1):1-23.