Ten Contributions of the Use of Qualitative Methodology in a Primary Care In-House Audit

Abstract

Qualitative methodology, originally belonging to the Social Sciences domain, has been incorporated progressively to Health Research to the scepticism of many and the admiration of others. Nowadays, validity and fiability of these qualitative techniques is still questioned by a great amount of health researchers and their use provokes doubt among reviewers and other members of the scientific community. This article presents as a fundamental measure of the validity of the qualitative methodology its precise use to approach research objectives specific to them and, echoing the extra issue of the Health Services Research journal on December 1999 on this methodology, gathers the contribution of the use of these techniques from a complementary point of view, in an Internal Communication Audit conducted in the Primary Care Services of four Regional Health Systems: Area II of the INSALUD (National Health Institute), Basque Health System, Canary Health System and Andalusian Health System.