Meta-ethnography
Reporting Guidance

eMERGe presents at the GRADE-CERQUal workshop on ‘Strengthening the use of qualitative evidence in decision making’- Geneva, 7-9 November 2017

How can findings from reviews of qualitative research be used to broaden and humanise decision making processes?

This was one of the key issues discussed at  a three-day workshop on ‘Strengthening the use of qualitative evidence in decision making’ in  Geneva, 7-9 November 2017. The GRADE-CERQual team, who have developed a tool to assess confidence in the evidence from reviews of qualitative research,  invited Dr Emma France and the eMERGe project team to present at the workshop. Dr Isabelle Uny gave a presentation, on behalf of the team, entitled “Can we apply CERQual to ‘higher order’ findings? Meta-ethnography as an example“. The workshop was attended by 30  representatives from the GRADE-CERQual  Group, researchers, decision makers and clinicians interested in the use of qualitative evidence in decision and policy making processes, and how such evidence can be used to strengthen the appropriateness of decisions on the implementation of health and social care interventions.

The goals of the workshop were: 1)explore and discuss how findings from reviews of qualitative research can be used to broaden and humanise decision making processes by helping to ensure that the ethical, social and systems implicatio ns of health and social care interventions are considered; 2)provide a platform for researchers and evidence users to share their experiences of producing and interpreting CERQual assessments of confidence in findings from reviews of qualitative research, particularly in the context of clinical guideline development, 3) to discuss the implications of these experiences for our understanding of the use of qualitative evidence in decision and policy making, for further developing the CERQual approach and for improving guidance on applying the CERQual approach.The eMERGe presentation formed partof a larger discussion session chaired by R. Garside about the use of GRADE-CERQual assessments for more interpretive findings.