Qualitative evaluation: A critical and interpretative complementary approach to improve health programs and services

Abstract

This short essay aims at commenting on the origin, development, rationale, and main characteristics of qualitative evaluation (QE), emphasizing the value of this methodological tool to evaluate health programs and services. During the past decades, different approaches have come to light proposing complementary alternatives to appraise the performance of public health programs, mainly focusing on the implementation process involved rather than on measuring the impact of such actions. QE is an alternative tool that can be used to illustrate and understand the process faced when executing health programs. It can also lead to useful suggestions to modify its implementation from the stakeholders’ perspectives, as it uses a qualitative approach that considers participants as reflective subjects, generators of meanings. This implies that beneficiaries become involved in an active manner in the evaluated phenomena with the aim of improving the health programs or services that they receive. With this work we want to encourage evaluators in the field of public health to consider the use of QE as a complementary tool for program evaluation to be able to identify areas of opportunity to improve programs’ implementation processes from the perspective of intended beneficiaries.

Building Wellbeing in People With Chronic Conditions: A Qualitative Evaluation of an 8-Week Positive Psychotherapy Intervention for People Living With an Acquired Brain Injury

“…The present study investigated the experience of service users who completed an 8-week Positive Psychology Intervention (PPI) run in 2017, offered by a community neurorehabilitation service in a major hospital located in South Wales, United Kingdom. A qualitative evaluation (QE) design was employed (Tayabas et al, 2014) to gather in-depth accounts of service user's experience of the PPI, consistent with United Kingdom National Health Service requirements of evaluating services and patient experience, in keeping with a participatory and context-sensitive approach. QE designs are used to evaluate programmes or services and can employ diverse approaches, including participatory action and interpretative methods, focused on understanding processes in context.…”

Strategies for increasing impact, engagement, and accessibility in HIV prevention programs: suggestions from women in urban high HIV burden counties in the Eastern United States (HPTN 064)

“…In this way, the interpretive paradigm maximizes subjectivity and can provide marginalized groups the opportunity to share, in their own words, their experiences and opinions [ 27 , 28 ]. Such data can be useful in supporting and challenging existing practices and policies in healthcare [ 29 , 30 ].…”

Coordinated hospital-home care for kidney patients on hemodialysis from the perspective of nursing personnel

“…This study presents results from a qualitative evaluation ( 15 - 16 ) of care for renal patients on HD from the perspective of health personnel (nurses, doctors, psychologists, nutritionists, social workers, physiotherapists), the patients and their family. The research was conducted using an ethnographic approach ( 17 ) in the Hemodialysis Unit (HDU) of a social security clinic in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, conducting interviews with nurses from January to May 2013.…”