The goals and needs of qualitative research in sexual medicine: recommendations from the Fifth International Consultation on Sexual Medicine (ICSM 2024).
Academic Article
Overview
abstract
INTRODUCTION: As the field of sexual medicine continues to grow, there has been increasing attention on methodological integrity and rigor of sexual medicine research, including an emphasis on guidelines for quantitative research design and standards for assessing clinical trial outcomes. However, qualitative research (QR) methodology has garnered relatively scant attention in comparison. OBJECTIVES: To clarify the value of QR and provide recommendations for improving implementation of QR methods in sexual medicine research. METHODS: A PubMed review was conducted. Expert opinion was based on a process of literature review and expert consensus. RESULTS: An essential goal of QR is to describe and explain unknown or insufficiently understood phenomena through detailed investigation of subjective human experience. Results from QR allow for generating hypotheses that may then be tested. More recently, mixed-methods research, ie, research integrating both qualitative and quantitative methods, is being increasingly used across domains of biomedical and health science research. While there remain differences of opinion regarding use of qualitative methodology in sexual medicine, best-practice models of QR underscore the principle of trustworthiness and include ethics and transparency in protocols for data collection and analysis. It is recommended that established QR frameworks for developing a research question are utilized and that consolidated criteria for reporting research results are employed. Furthermore, authors and reviewers need training in both QR methods and qualitative reporting frameworks to be able to adequately report and review this type of research. Specific areas in sexual medicine that would ideally benefit from QR methods are suggested. CONCLUSION: As the field of sexual medicine continues to expand, qualitative methodologies including mixed-methods research, offer significant value for understanding domains of inquiry that have not been thoroughly investigated. To achieve these targets, training of authors and reviewers on QR is needed.
