Focus groups

McCabe (2011) was able to validate her hunch that teachers and nurses observed symptoms of fatigue in school-aged children. She provides specific examples of their comments to illustrate themes and patterns she found in focus group data. These examples support and provide the rationale for her conclusions. Qualitative research reports commonly contain such examples rather than tables and statistical analyses. Before interpreting the findings of qualitative research, the investigator compares the study findings to previous research, looking for additional support or contrary findings. Dr. McCabe also suggests ways to build on this study and recommends future topics for investigation. Focus groups may seem particularly well suited to many topics in nursing because they often involve families and community groups. This qualitative methodology is an excellent way to get a "bird's eye view" of the opinions, values, and feelings about research problems, particularly in the initial and early stages. The reader may want to review other articles describing studies using focus group methods in the "Additional Readings" section below.