Calman’s Study: Patients' Views of Nurse Competence

Calman’s study examines, from the patients' perspective, what is meant by competent nursing and how, with this perspective in mind, patients would view the prospect of assessing the competence of nurses. The study was guided by a primary research question “how do patients construct the concept of competence of nurses?” (Calman, 2006). Her research aimed to create a theoretical understanding of patient’s views of nursing competence and what their opinions are when faced with the prospect of assessing the competence of the nurses that have cared for them. The research strives to be able to eventually provide evidence that would aid to improve the future planning of patient involvement in nurse education. Calman used an array of techniques to collect and analysis data, it could be suggested that it may have been more beneficial or appropriate to have chosen alternative techniques.

Calman adopted a qualitative approach to her research, using a grounded theory approach originally defined by Glaser and Strauss as "the discovery of theory from data systematically obtained from social research” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, 2). Generally in grounded theory studies, and shown in Calman’s is they are "focused on social processes or actions: they ask about what happens and how people interact" (Sbaraini et al, 2001, 129) and they show an interest of symbolic interactionism. The principles of grounded theory were used to guide data collection, analysis and theory development in Calman’s study. Grounded theory studies begin with open general questions and in Calman's study it was “how do patients construct the concept of competence of nurses?”, and unlike other qualitative methods instead of following a set theory, grounded theory uses methods...

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