Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Oct;14(4):226-33.
doi: 10.1258/jhsrp.2009.008186.

A Bayesian method for the synthesis of evidence from qualitative and quantitative reports: the example of antiretroviral medication adherence

Corrine Voils  1 , Vic Hassselblad, Jamie Crandell, Yunkyung Chang, Eunjeong Lee, Margarete Sandelowski
Affiliations

A Bayesian method for the synthesis of evidence from qualitative and quantitative reports: the example of antiretroviral medication adherence

Corrine Voils et al. J Health Serv Res Policy. 2009 Oct.

Abstract

Objectives: Bayesian meta-analysis is a frequently cited but very little-used method for synthesizing qualitative and quantitative research findings. The only example published to date used qualitative data to generate an informative prior probability and quantitative data to generate the likelihood. We developed a method to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative evidence in the likelihood in a Bayesian synthesis of evidence about the relationship between regimen complexity and medication adherence.

Methods: Data were from 11 qualitative and six quantitative studies. We updated two different non-informative prior distributions with qualitative and quantitative findings to find the posterior distribution for the probabilities that a more complex regimen was associated with lower adherence and that a less complex regimen was associated with greater adherence.

Results: The posterior mode for the qualitative findings regarding more complex regimen and lesser adherence (using the uniform prior with Jeffreys' prior yielding highly similar estimates) was 0.588 (95% credible set limits 0.519, 0.663) and for the quantitative findings was 0.224 (0.203, 0.245); due to non-overlapping credible sets, we did not combine them. The posterior mode for the qualitative findings regarding less complex regimen and greater adherence was 0.288 (0.214, 0.441) and for the quantitative findings was 0.272 (0.118, 0.437); the combined estimate was 0.299 (0.267, 0.334).

Conclusions: The utility of Bayesian methods for synthesizing qualitative and quantitative research findings at the participant level may depend on the nature of the relationship being synthesized and on how well the findings are represented in the individual reports.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Prior distribution of the probability of a participant reporting a relationship
Figure 2
Figure 2
Posterior distribution of the probability of a participant reporting the relationship between a more complex regimen and lesser adherence
Figure 3
Figure 3
Posterior distribution of the probability of a participant reporting the relationship between a less complex regimen and greater adherence
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Dixon-Woods M, Agarwal S, Jones D, et al. Synthesising qualitative and quantitative evidence: A review of possible methods. J Health Serv Res Policy. 2005;10:45–53. - PubMed
    1. Mays N, Pope C, Popay J. Systematically reviewing qualitative and quantitative evidence to inform management and policy-making in the health field. J Health Serv Res Policy. 2005;10(Suppl 1):6–20. - PubMed
    1. Boaz A, Ashby D, Denyer D, et al. A multitude of syntheses: A comparison of five approaches from diverse policy fields. Evidence & Policy. 2008;2:479–502.
    1. Roberts KA, Dixon-Woods M, Fitzpatrick R, et al. Factors affecting uptake of childhood immunisation: A Bayesian synthesis of qualitative and quantitative evidence. Lancet. 2002;360:1596–9. - PubMed
    1. Sandelowski M, Barroso J. Handbook for Synthesizing Qualitative Research. Springer; New York, NY: 2007.

Publication types

Substances