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Reflexivity is a key feature in qualitative research, essential for ensuring rigor. As a nurse practitioner with decades of experience with individuals who have chronic diseases, now embarking on a PhD, I am confronted with the question “how will my clinical experiences shape my research?” Since there are few guidelines to help researchers engage in reflexivity in a robust way, deeply buried aspects that may affect the research may be overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to consider the affordances of combining autoethnography (AE) with visual methods to facilitate richer reflexivity. Reflexive activities such as free writing of an autobiographical narrative, drawings of clinical vignettes, and interviews conducted by an experienced qualitative researcher were analyzed to probe and make visible perspectives that may impact knowledge production. Two key themes reflecting my values—fostering advocacy and favoring independence and autonomy were uncovered with this strategy.

Grounded theory is a commonly used research methodology. There are three primary approaches to grounded theory in nursing research: those espoused by Glaser, Strauss and Corbin, and Charmaz. All three approaches use similar procedures, yet there are important differences among them, which implies that researchers need to make careful choices when using grounded theory. Researchers new to grounded theory need to find the most appropriate approach that fits their research field, topic, and researcher position. In this article, we compare the three grounded theory approaches. Choices of a grounded theory approach will depend on the researcher’s understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of all three approaches. Practical aspects of grounded theory approaches should match the information processing styles and analytical abilities of the researcher and the intended use of the theory. We illustrate key aspects of decision making about which method to select by drawing upon the first author’s experiences in his doctoral research.

Autoethnography is increasingly used in nursing education research to examine the relational, embodied, and often hidden dimensions of teaching, learning, and professional socialization. Yet uneven use of variant-sensitive approaches, quality frameworks, and ethics reporting suggests continuing methodological inconsistency. We conducted an integrative review of autoethnographic nursing education literature published between 2010 and 2025, examining five dimensions: (1) variant definitions and operationalization, (2) quality appraisal frameworks, (3) reflexivity and positionality practices, (4) credibility strategies, and (5) ethical procedures, including attention to implicated others. Systematic searches of CINAHL, MEDLINE, ERIC, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science yielded 23 eligible studies. Collaborative autoethnography predominated (56%), and several studies, especially those examining the experiences of racially minoritized faculty, explicitly positioned autoethnography as a decolonizing approach and demonstrated stronger reported reflexive practices. Reflexivity, as represented in published manuscripts, ranged from integrated positionality analyses that informed analytic decisions to brief, largely token acknowledgment. Findings suggest that nursing education scholarship may benefit from a fit-for-variant approach to appraisal and clearer field expectations for relational ethics reporting, especially given power differentials when faculty write about students, colleagues, and institutions. More explicit linking of standpoint to analysis may advance methodological transparency and interpretive credibility.

Severe maternal morbidity (SMM) encompasses life-threatening complications during pregnancy, childbirth, or the postpartum period and is associated with profound physical, psychological, and social consequences. Individuals affected by SMM often report fragmented postpartum care and unmet emotional needs, underscoring the need for equity-oriented approaches. Embedded within the SERENE (Supportive, Evidence-informed, Responsive, and Equity-oriented prevention and care model to reduce the incidence and NEgative impacts of severe maternal morbidity) research program, this protocol describes a qualitative descriptive study (2024–2027) that aims to generate data grounded in the experiences of people affected by SMM and health care providers to inform the development of postpartum care pathways, practice guidance and educational interventions. Using purposeful sampling, we will conduct semi-structured interviews with multiple participant groups including individuals who have experienced SMM, involved family members, and health care professionals across Ontario, Canada. Findings will inform the co-development of practice guidance, a care pathway and an educational intervention to enhance provider confidence in delivering equity-oriented care. Ethical considerations include use of a participant safety protocol to navigate discussion of sensitive topics and trauma-informed supports for research staff. This study will generate actionable insights to strengthen postpartum care systems and reduce health inequities for individuals recovering from SMM.

Health and quality of life vary across neighborhoods, showing that where people live shapes how they live. However, current quantitative geo-focused methods exploring neighborhood impacts on health do not fully capture how people experience places. Nurse researchers’ grounding in the nursing metaparadigm (person, environment, health, and nursing) positions them to lead inquiry into how social and physical neighborhood environments affect health. We propose a nursing-led Go-along Virtual INTERview (GVIv) approach that utilizes digital street-view platforms to conduct virtual interviews to investigate how neighborhoods shape lived experiences. Guided by the Political Ecology Framework to contextualize historical, cultural, and political-economic influences on health, and principles of community-engaged research, we used the GVIv approach to situate narratives of individuals with opioid use disorders in Chicago. This approach combines in-person and virtual semi-structured interviews to explore how built, social, economic, cultural, and temporal neighborhood factors shape health. Our pilot application of GVIv showed promise in eliciting rich contextual data, shifting researcher–participant dynamics, reducing resource expenditure, and enhancing safety. GVIv expands nursing research by offering a participant-centered, scalable approach to examine place-based health influences and inform equitable policy and intervention design.

Despite four decades of resilience research, resilience remains a poor fit for practice as a scientific construct. Using the literature, we explored the concepts attributed to the development of resilience, identifying those that mitigate symptoms of distress caused by adversity and facilitate coping in seven classes of illness: transplants, cancer, mental illness, episodic illness, chronic and painful illness, unexpected events, and illness within a dyadic relationship. We identified protective, compensatory, and challenge-related coping-concept strategies that healthcare workers and patients use during the adversity experience. Healthcare-worker assessment and selection of appropriate coping concepts enable the individual to control their distress, resulting in attainment of equanimity and the state of resilience, permitting the resilient individual to work toward recovery, recalibration, and readjustment. We inductively developed and linked these conceptual components into a dynamic framework, The Resilience Framework for Nursing and Healthcare, making it widely applicable for healthcare across a variety of patients.

In-depth knowledge of what it means to patients to receive health care services is crucial to the development of adequate protocols for nursing. Qualitative research allows us to gain important insight into what is experienced by and meaningful to patients. The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s thoughts have inspired qualitative researchers to conduct various forms of analysis and interpretation that increase our knowledge of ways of being-in-the-world. This article describes and discusses how a specific approach to derive in-depth knowledge of patients’ lived experiences can be taken. A combination of participant observations and interviews was used to generate data. Field notes and transcribed interviews were gathered as one collective text and analyzed and interpreted with inspiration from Ricoeur’s thoughts on narratives and interpretation. This approach is argued to be a significant way of developing in-depth knowledge of patients’ lived experiences. Such knowledge is important within nursing science.

Healthcare provides a rich, and constantly increasing, number of written documents, which are underutilized in research data for health and nursing sciences, but previous literature has only provided limited guidance on the process of document analysis. The aim of this paper is to provide a methodological framework for analyzing health care documents as written data, based on a systematic methodological review and the research team’s experience of the method. Based on the results, the methods consist of seven phases: (i) identify the purpose, (ii) determine the document selection strategy, (iii) select or design an extraction matrix, (iv) carry out pilot testing, (v) collect and analyze the data, (vi) consider the credibility, and (vii) ethics of the study. The framework that has been developed can be used to carry out document analysis studies that are both feasible and credible.

Older persons often stay in conflict zones, abandoned by younger generations and neglected by the government, putting them at risk of becoming victims of violence. This meta-ethnographic study aims to review and synthesise qualitative research on violence in contexts of war and armed conflicts as experienced by older persons and explore how violence in war and armed conflicts affects the health and well-being. Databases (CINAHL, PsychINFO, Web of Science, and Scopus) were searched for studies with a qualitative approach and participants aged ≥ 55 years. Twenty qualitative studies were included, describing experiences of persons from seven countries. Guarding the past and ensuring a future was established as an overarching metaphor in a lines-of-argument synthesis, accompanied by five themes: To endure a violent situation; Home - the heart of existence; To witness a fragile family line; Alienated and abandoned by society- adding insult to injury and Maintaining normality in an abnormal situation. Through interpretation, an understanding emerges of how separation from loved ones, the breakdown of healthcare services, and remaining in conflict areas can significantly increase vulnerability, while simultaneously demonstrating the resilience of older persons and their willingness to serve as resources within their communities.

Empirical phenomenological inquiry and analyses are of high relevance and applicability for nursing and health care. Phenomenology has clear roots in philosophy, which needs to be brought into an empirical phenomenological inquiry. However, all study of phenomena and experience does not qualify as phenomenological inquiry. The aim of this article is to provide guidance for how to relate different empirical phenomenological methodologies that are in play in the broader field of healthcare research, and thus support healthcare researchers in navigating between these methodologies. For pedagogical purposes, we present commonalities and differences as related to descriptive and interpretive phenomenological inquiries throughout the research process. The merits and criticisms of empirical phenomenological inquiry are commented on.