From: Understanding Hospital Admissions Close to the End of Life (ACE) Study
Research questions | Data collection | Data analysis |
---|---|---|
1. How are decisions that result in admissions at end of life made in practice? | • Qualitative interviews with the decision-makers in the community and hospital and with next of kin of 48 patients will be used to develop descriptive case-studies of patient experiences | • Thematic analysis of interview data |
• Quantitative analysis of questionnaire | ||
2. What do patients, carers and practitioners think can or should be different in decision-making around admissions to hospital close to the end of life? | • Vignette-based focus groups with patients/carers and commissioners/managers to explore their perspectives on acute admissions at end of life | • Thematic analysis of interview data |
• Quantitative analysis of questionnaire | ||
• Qualitative vignette-style questionnaires with professionals to validate and quantify findings from the interview phase | • Thematic analysis of patient focus groups | |
3. What is current policy around place of death and hospital admissions close to the end of life? | • Review and evaluation of literature and policy against the empirical findings | • Thematic analysis of literature and policy |
• Thematic analysis of commissioner/manager focus groups | ||
4. How do current policy and practice compare? | • Review and evaluation of literature and policy against the empirical findings | • Critical comparison of thematic analysis of empirical data and thematic analysis of policy to help identify overlaps, gaps, contradictions and tensions. |
5. What are the implications for policy and practice? | • Review and evaluation of literature and policy against the empirical findings | • Application of social marketing framework to help identify “actionable insights” for policy and practice. |