Rigour Criteria | Purpose | Original Strategies | Strategies applied in our study to achieve rigour |
---|---|---|---|
Credibility | To establish confidence that the results (from the perspective of the participants) are true, credible and believable. | • Prolonged and varied engagement with each setting | • Interviewers spent an average of 6–8 weeks per site to engage with ED and participants. |
• Interviewing process and techniques | • Interview protocol tested at two induction meetings and using 1–2 pilot interviews. | ||
• Establishing investigators’ authority | • We ensured the investigators had the required knowledge and research skills to perform their roles. | ||
• Collection of referential adequacy materials | • We asked interviewers to send all the field notes to the research office for analysis and storage. | ||
• Peer debriefing | • We had regular debriefing sessions with key members of Project Management Committee/Australasian College of Emergency Medicine. | ||
Dependability | To ensure the findings of this qualitative inquiry are repeatable if the inquiry occurred within the same cohort of participants, coders and context. | • Rich description of the study methods | • We prepared detailed drafts of the study protocol throughout the study. |
• Establishing an audit trail | • We developed a detailed track record of the data collection process. | ||
• Stepwise replication of the data | • We measured coding accuracy and inter-coders’ reliability of the research team. | ||
Confirmability | To extend the confidence that the results would be confirmed or corroborated by other researchers. | • Reflexivity | • We implemented reflexive journals and weekly investigators meetings. |
• Triangulation | • We applied several triangulation techniques (methodological, data source, investigators and theoretical). | ||
Transferability | To extend the degree to which the results can be generalized or transferred to other contexts or settings. | • Purposeful sampling to form a nominated sample | • We used a combination of three purposive sampling techniques. |
• Data saturation | • We quantified operational and theoretical data saturation. |