Critical Appraisal Checklist for Qualitative Research Studies

This article outlines ten issues for critical appraisal of qualitative research which are related to a number of underlying themes. All activity within a research project should be related to the research question or underlying logic. Bias is an inherent threat to any research endeavour and steps should be taken within each activity to minimise its effects. In research reports the activities and procedures should be clearly described so that the reader can come to his or her own conclusions about the trustworthiness of the methods, analytical procedures and interpretation of the data. A further challenge for qualitative researchers is to present the degree of detail needed to address these issues in journal papers where space is limited.