A combined qualitative methodology for nursing research

Aspects of grounded theory, ethnography, and phenomenology were combined to provide a nursing research methodology to be used in describing the human experience of miscarriage and the caring needs of women who miscarry. Rather than focus on findings, this article details the step-by-step process the researcher used to move from initial curiosity to the sharing of discovered categories. The combined qualitative strategy is offered as a methodology that is congruent with the conceptualization of nursing as a human science concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of human responses to actual and potential health problems.