Shared understanding of the qualitative research process. Guidelines for the medical researcher

The qualitative research process is presented and discussed as a model, emphasizing matters frequently experienced as unfamiliar by the medical researcher. This model represents a prescriptive methodology, implying underlying values on construction of scientific knowledge where shared understanding--intersubjectivity--is considered as essential. Various stages of the research process are demonstrated, drawing attention to matters that influence analysis and the paths to knowledge, especially preconceptions and theoretical frames of reference. Principles and procedures related to analysis of qualitative data, as decontextualizing and recontextualizing, are explained. The structure of this model, accentuating the researcher's responsibility to give access to all levels of the research process, underlies all kinds of scientific inquiry. Such principles should probably more often be explicitly questioned and accounted for in all sorts of medical research.