Many elements of qualitative research are shared between the variety of approaches, and often the overlap of epistemology, ethics and procedures encourages a generic and flexible view of this type of inquiry. This article argues that there is an essential tension between flexibility on the one hand, and consistency and coherence on the other. Such tension may encourage qualitative researchers to consider the intentions and philosophical underpinnings of the different approaches in greater depth in order to arrive at an epistemological position that can coherently underpin its empirical claims. This article is intended to encourage a more thoughtful engagement with different qualitative approaches by highlighting distinctive elements of three of the most common approaches. We suggest that the researcher be contextsensitive and flexible as well as considerate of the inner consistency and coherence that is needed when engaged in qualitative research.

In this paper we offer an appreciation and critique of patient-led care as expressed in current policy and practice. We argue that current patient-led approaches hinder a focus on a deeper understanding of what patient-led care could be. Our critique focuses on how the consumerist/citizenship emphasis in current patient-led care obscures attention from a more fundamental challenge to conceptualise an alternative philosophically informed framework from where care can be led. We thus present an alternative interpretation of patient-led care that we call 'lifeworld-led care', and argue that such lifeworld-led care is more than the general understanding of patient-led care. Although the philosophical roots of our alternative conceptualisation are not new, we believe that it is timely to re-consider some of the implications of these perspectives within current discourses of patient-centred policies and practice. The conceptualisation of lifeworld-led care that we develop includes an articulation of three dimensions: a philosophy of the person, a view of well-being and not just illness, and a philosophy of care that is consistent with this. We conclude that the existential view of well-being that we offer is pivotal to lifeworld-led care in that it provides a direction for care and practice that is intrinsically and positively health focused in its broadest and most substantial sense.

In this paper, we describe the value and philosophy of lifeworld-led care. Our purpose is to give a philosophically coherent foundation for lifeworld-led care and its core value as a humanising force that moderates technological progress. We begin by indicating the timeliness of these concerns within the current context of citizen-oriented, participative approaches to healthcare. We believe that this context is in need of a deepening philosophy if it is not to succumb to the discourses of mere consumerism. We thus revisit the potential of Husserl's notion of the lifeworld and how lifeworld-led care could provide important ideas and values that are central to the humanisation of healthcare practice. This framework provides a synthesis of the main arguments of the paper and is finally expressed in a model of lifeworld-led care that includes its core value, core perspectives, relevant indicative methodologies and main benefits. The model is offered as a potentially broad-based approach for integrating many existing practices and trends. In the spirit of Husserl's interest in both commonality and variation, we highlight the central, less contestable foundations of lifeworld-led care, without constraining the possible varieties of confluent practices.

Qualitative research, through its illumination of people's perspectives and experiences, has contributed a particular kind of useful evidence for caring practices. Until now however, it has found its location in healthcare without making the powerful impact on humanizing practice that is its key strength. Our paper develops a conceptual framework for humanizing care, and through examples illustrates an emerging agenda that moves qualitative research into its next and overdue phase: to enter policy-making; curricula in professional education; and to be meaningfully translated into practice in ways that place people as human beings at the centre of care. This paper provides eight philosophically informed dimensions of humanization, which together, form a framework that constitutes a comprehensive value base for considering both the potentially humanizing and dehumanizing elements in caring systems and interactions. In each case, we show, with reference to published studies, how qualitative research findings are already consistent with the humanizing focus articulated in our conceptual framework. We finally describe a reciprocal relationship in which the humanizing value framework guides a dedicated focus for qualitative research, and in which qualitative research in its turn, supports the humanising emphasis because of its intrinsic features.

This article offers a conceptual framework by which different kinds and levels of well-being can be named, and as such, provides a foundation for a resource-oriented approach in situations of illness and vulnerability (rather than a deficit-oriented approach). Building on a previous paper that articulated the philosophical foundations of an existential theory of well-being (“Dwelling-mobility”), we show here how the theory can be further developed towards practice-relevant concerns. We introduce 18 kinds of well-being that are intertwined and inter-related, and consider how each emphasis can lead to the formulation of resources that have the potential to give rise to well-being as a felt experience. By focusing on a much wider range of well-being possibilities, practitioners may find new directions for care that are not just literal but also at an existential level.