Qualitative research in health psychology: developments and directions

There is ongoing debate within psychology about the legitimacy of qualitative methods, although this debate has only recently begun within the subdiscipline of health psychology. In the health arena, psychology has been one of the last disciplines to adopt qualitative methods for research. This issue of the Journal of Health Psychology provides a forum for some health psychologists to present their research using qualitative methods. Their work covers a range of health issues and draws on a variety of qualitative methods, documenting the diversity and utility of these methods for health research. In this article, we consider the background to this qualitative turn, review the content of this special issue and consider the direction for qualitative research in health psychology.