Limitations |
Variety of qualitative methodologies (e.g. ethnography, phenomenology and grounded theory) [44] |
Non-standardised terminology for qualitative research [44] |
Use of descriptive non-explicit titles [8, 14, 30, 34, 37, 40, 45] |
Absence of clear descriptions of study samples in the published abstracts [47] |
Inadequacy of indexing terminology for qualitative methodology [8, 14, 21, 26, 30, 33, 34, 37, 40, 44] |
Inappropriate assignment of index terms by indexers [8, 21, 46] |
Inter-database differences in indexing terminology [8, 14, 30, 31, 37] |
Potential mismatch between focus of paper and focus of the review [34] |
Non-existence of registers of qualitative research [8, 26, 34] |
Qualitative research located outside medical databases [43, 45] |
Absence of pointers to qualitative research from registers of RCTs [8] |
Difficulty in identifying qualitative reports associated with RCTs [6] |
Difficulty in retrieving reports of mixed-methods studies [6] |
Social science employs more diverse publication media than medical literature [18, 37] |
Strategies for qualitative research can be over inclusive, time-consuming and expensive [21, 46] |