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This article, the fifth in a series aiming to provide practical guidance for qualitative research in primary care, introduces three qualitative approaches with co-creative characteristics for addressing emerging themes in primary care research: experience-based co-design, user-centred design and community-based participatory research. Co-creation aims to define the (research) problem, develop and implement interventions and evaluate and define (research and practice) outcomes in partnership with patients, family carers, researchers, care professionals and other relevant stakeholders. Experience-based co-design seeks to understand how people experience a health care process or service. User-centred design is an approach to assess, design and develop technological and organisational systems, for example, eHealth, involving end-users in the design and decision-making processes. Community-based participatory research is a collaborative approach addressing a locally relevant health issue. It is often directed at hard-to-reach and vulnerable people. We address the context, what, why, when and how of these co-creative approaches, and their main practical and methodological challenges. We provide examples of empirical studies using these approaches and sources for further reading.

Young, Sutherland, and McCoy indicated that a Go/No-Go Task (GNG) becomes more difficult as the inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) becomes shorter. However, is the number of commission errors under extremely short ISIs a useful metric for assessing response inhibition? This study challenges the assumption that a shorter ISI in the GNG enables better assessment of response inhibition. University students (N = 213) completed the GNG, the Conners Continuous Performance Test 3rd Edition (CCPT), and the Modified Stroop Task. The GNG comprised four blocks of 400, 600, 800, and 1000 ms ISIs, whereas the stimulus presentation was fixed at 250 ms. Consistent with Young et al., shorter ISIs in the GNG resulted in more commission errors. In the block with the shortest ISI, participants also failed more frequently in responses in go trials than in the other blocks, which appears to increase in error variance of commission errors. Consistent with this interpretation, the association between the number of commission errors in the block with 400 ms ISI and CCPT performance was weaker than those between the number of commission errors in other blocks and CCPT performance. It is concluded that using the number of commission errors in the condition with extremely short ISIs in the GNG might be inappropriate for assessing response inhibition.

Contains fulltext : 220219.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Introduction: As one of the major health problems in the present century, the COVID-19 pandemic affected all parts of the global communities and the health of substance users are potentially at a greater risk of harm. This global study has been designed and conducted by the International Society of Addiction Medicine Practice and Policy Interest Group (ISAM-PPIG) to understand better the health related issues of people with Substance Use Disorders (SUD) as well as responses of the relevant health care systems during the pandemic. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study using convenient sampling. The data gathering was carried out with two follow-up stages each two months apart through an online conducted survey prepared using Google platform. The survey started by emergence of COVID-19 as a pandemic in March 2020 and respondents were followed till September 2020 when most of the initial lockdowns by most countries are supposed to be reopened. Ethics and Dissemination: The study was approved by the ethics committee of University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran. The results will be published in relevant peer reviewing journals and communicated with different international stakeholders. 8 p.

The experiences and challenges of psychotherapists working remotely during the coronavirus pandemic were explored using a mixed‐methods approach. An online survey completed by 335 psychotherapists produced both quantitative and qualitative data with the latter being subject to a reflexive thematic analysis. Large numbers of therapists were using video‐link platforms and the telephone to conduct client sessions. A majority of therapists felt challenged by remote working, with reduced interpersonal cues, feelings of isolation and fatigue, and technical issues frequently cited concerns. At the same time, most therapists considered that remote working had been effective and that clients were comfortable with the process. Two‐thirds of therapists indicated that remote working would now become core business for them. The great majority of therapists thought that remote working skills should be part of formal therapy trainings.

In the course of our supervisory work over the years, we have noticed that qualitative research tends to evoke a lot of questions and worries, so-called frequently asked questions (FAQs). This series of four articles intends to provide novice researchers with practical guidance for conducting high-quality qualitative research in primary care. By ‘novice’ we mean Master’s students and junior researchers, as well as experienced quantitative researchers who are engaging in qualitative research for the first time. This series addresses their questions and provides researchers, readers, reviewers and editors with references to criteria and tools for judging the quality of qualitative research papers. The second article focused on context, research questions and designs, and referred to publications for further reading. This third article addresses FAQs about sampling, data collection and analysis. The data collection plan needs to be broadly defined and open at first, and become flexible during data collection. Sampling strategies should be chosen in such a way that they yield rich information and are consistent with the methodological approach used. Data saturation determines sample size and will be different for each study. The most commonly used data collection methods are participant observation, face-to-face in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Analyses in ethnographic, phenomenological, grounded theory, and content analysis studies yield different narrative findings: a detailed description of a culture, the essence of the lived experience, a theory, and a descriptive summary, respectively. The fourth and final article will focus on trustworthiness and publishing qualitative research.

In the course of our supervisory work over the years we have noticed that qualitative research tends to evoke a lot of questions and worries, so-called frequently asked questions (FAQs). This series of four articles intends to provide novice researchers with practical guidance for conducting high-quality qualitative research in primary care. By ‘novice’ we mean Master’s students and junior researchers, as well as experienced quantitative researchers who are engaging in qualitative research for the first time. This series addresses their questions and provides researchers, readers, reviewers and editors with references to criteria and tools for judging the quality of qualitative research papers. The first article provides an introduction to this series. The second article focused on context, research questions and designs. The third article focused on sampling, data collection and analysis. This fourth article addresses FAQs about trustworthiness and publishing. Quality criteria for all qualitative research are credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Reflexivity is an integral part of ensuring the transparency and quality of qualitative research. Writing a qualitative research article reflects the iterative nature of the qualitative research process: data analysis continues while writing. A qualitative research article is mostly narrative and tends to be longer than a quantitative paper, and sometimes requires a different structure. Editors essentially use the criteria: is it new, is it true, is it relevant? An effective cover letter enhances confidence in the newness, trueness and relevance, and explains why your study required a qualitative design. It provides information about the way you applied quality criteria or a checklist, and you can attach the checklist to the manuscript.

In the course of our supervisory work over the years, we have noticed that qualitative research tends to evoke a lot of questions and worries, so-called Frequently Asked Questions. This journal series of four articles intends to provide novice researchers with practical guidance for conducting high-quality qualitative research in primary care. By ‘novice’ we mean Master’s students and junior researchers, as well as experienced quantitative researchers who are engaging in qualitative research for the first time. This series addresses their questions and provides researchers, readers, reviewers and editors with references to criteria and tools for judging the quality of papers reporting on qualitative research. This first article describes the key features of qualitative research, provides publications for further learning and reading, and gives an outline of the series.

In the course of our supervisory work over the years, we have noticed that qualitative research tends to evoke a lot of questions and worries, so-called frequently asked questions (FAQs). This series of four articles intends to provide novice researchers with practical guidance for conducting high-quality qualitative research in primary care. By ‘novice’ we mean Master’s students and junior researchers, as well as experienced quantitative researchers who are engaging in qualitative research for the first time. This series addresses their questions and provides researchers, readers, reviewers and editors with references to criteria and tools for judging the quality of qualitative research papers. This second article addresses FAQs about context, research questions and designs. Qualitative research takes into account the natural contexts in which individuals or groups function to provide an in-depth understanding of real-world problems. The research questions are generally broad and open to unexpected findings. The choice of a qualitative design primarily depends on the nature of the research problem, the research question(s) and the scientific knowledge one seeks. Ethnography, phenomenology and grounded theory are considered to represent the ‘big three’ qualitative approaches. Theory guides the researcher through the research process by providing a ‘lens’ to look at the phenomenon under study. Since qualitative researchers and the participants of their studies interact in a social process, researchers influence the research process. The first article described the key features of qualitative research, the third article will focus on sampling, data collection and analysis, while the last article focuses on trustworthiness and publishing.

Monocytes have long been considered a heterogeneous group of cells both in terms of morphology and function. In humans, three distinct subsets have been described based on their differential expression of the cell surface markers CD14 and CD16. However, the relationship between these subsets and the production of cytokines has for the most part been based on ELISA measurements, making it difficult to draw conclusions as to their functional profile on the cellular level. In this study, we have investigated lipoteichoic acid (LTA)- and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced cytokine secretion by monocytes using the FluoroSpot technique. This method measures the number of cytokine-secreting cells on the single-cell level and uses fluorescent detection, allowing for the simultaneous analysis of two cytokines from the same population of isolated cells. By this approach, human monocytes from healthy volunteers could be divided into several subgroups as IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α and MIP-1β were secreted by larger populations of responding cells (25.9–39.2%) compared with the smaller populations of GM-CSF (9.1%), IL-10 (1.3%) and IL-12p40 (1.2%). Furthermore, when studying co-secretion in FluoroSpot, an intricate relationship between the monocytes secreting IL-1β and/or IL-6 and those secreting TNF-α, MIP-1β, GM-CSF, IL-10 and IL-12p40 was revealed. In this way, dissecting the secretion pattern of the monocytes in response to TLR-2 or TLR-4 stimulation, several subpopulations with distinct cytokine-secreting profiles could be identified.

Statistical analyses for small populations or small domains of interest can be challenging. To obtain reliable estimates, only very large surveys such as the Canadian Community Health Survey can be considered. However, despite its good geographical and temporal coverage, the analysis of small populations in smaller regions (e.g., health regions) and in regards to specific health issues remains challenging. We will look at the methodological issues in analysis of small populations in relation to sampling and non-sampling survey errors that affect the precision and accuracy of the estimates. Francophone minorities in Canada will be used to illustrate the issues throughout the paper.