THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF NURSES WHO CARE PATIENT WITH COVID 19 IN SAUDI ARABIA
Qualitative Research
Qualitative research is a framework of inquiry focusing on the interpretation of experiences and way of life in different people. Holloway & Galvin (2016) describe the aims of qualitative research as the objective of describing, understanding and interpreting social phenomena by different people or cultures of the world. Therefore, qualitative research is used to investigate the experiences, feelings or behaviours of a group of people. It makes it easier to explore phenomena with practically unmeasurable variables. Munhall (2012) explains the aims of qualitative research as individual interpretations of context, meaning, narrations, critique, significance, truth, and social self-orientation to aid the understanding and liberation of subjects. This focus develops new approaches or theories about phenomena that address or solve the research problem. Creswell (2014) suggests the application of qualitative studies in research problems that do not suit statistical and quantitative approaches. For instance, research problems establishing ‘why’ about a phenomenon, deploy qualitative strategies due to the immeasurability of the variables. Through this type of research approach, participants are engaged in such a way that encourages them to share their personal feelings or stories about the research problem. Researchers interpret these feelings, narrations and experiences to understand the plight of subjects. Thus, qualitative surveys give more details, in-depth knowledge and understanding about the topic.
Methods
This study will deploy a qualitative approach to explore the lived experience and psychological state of COVID-19 clinical nurses in Saudi Arabia. The research methodology was heuristic phenomenology; the researcher is personally involved in the process of data collection. The choice of this approach is guided by the properties of research questions and the main study objective; research purpose. Thus, according to the Moustakas framework, transcendental phenomenology best suits the underlying requirements of qualitatively analyzing the experiences of COVID-19 nurses in Saudi Arabia.
Research Design
A research design synchronizes components of the study into logic and coherence. Moreover, It outlines the plan for data collection, measurement and analysis, thus, wholesomely addressing the research problem. This study adopted Husserl’s descriptive phenomenology to assess the experience of COVD-19 clinical nurses in Saudi Arabia. The Husserlian descriptive phenomenological approach entails three aspects; natural attitude, intentionality and reduction, an approach applicable in the investigation of psychological experiences (Christensen et al., 2017; Willig et al., 2017). On the other hand, Moustakas’ transcendental phenomenology focuses on describing the psychological experiences of subjects (Moerer-urdahl & Creswell, 2004). This approach has three significant steps; epoche, reduction, and imaginative variation. The first step, epoche, entails descriptions of researchers’ personal experiences, setting aside prejudgments, identifying participant statements and classifying them into significant themes and units (Moerer-urdahl & Creswell, 2004). Phenomenological reduction considers each experience’s singularity liberating the researcher from the bondage of organizing some statements as more significant. The participant statements are reduced into more appropriate units giving more textural meaning and descriptions. Imaginative variation is the explication of the structure of participants’ experiences (Moerer-urdahl & Creswell, 2004). It is a mental experiment that reveals the different dimensions of the experiences of participants. Besides, imaginative variation gives the essence of the research as it draws the mental picture of subject experiences enabling descriptions and understanding.
References
Christensen, M., Welch, A., & Barr, J. (2017). Husserlian Descriptive Phenomenology: A review of intentionality, reduction and the natural attitude. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 7(8), 113. https://doi.org/10.5430/jnep.v7n8p113
Creswell, J. W. (2014). A concise introduction to mixed methods research. SAGE publications.
Holloway, I., & Galvin, K. (2016). Qualitative research in nursing and healthcare. John Wiley & Sons.
Moerer-urdahl, T., & Creswell, J. (2004). Using Transcendental Phenomenology to Explore the “Ripple Effect” in a.pdf. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3(2), 1–28.
Munhall, P. (2012). Nursing research. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Willig, C., Rogers, W. S., Giorgi, A., Giorgi, B., & Morley, J. (2017). The Descriptive Phenomenological Psychological Method. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, 176–192. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526405555.n11