Qualitative data can be helpful or necessary for understanding how patients, clinicians, and other stakeholders decide among alternative options in health care. This project sought to advance PCOR by integrating insights from the social and health sciences about the nature of rigor in qualitative research and to develop new tools to facilitate the conduct of qualitative PCOR. The project focused on a methodological tool – the ethnoarray – that is modeled on methods used by biological scientists to analyze and visually display complex datasets. The ethnoarray presents data using a heat map approach that can reveal patterns within large qualitative datasets while preserving subject-centered narratives. In previous work, we described the ethnoarray and constructed a mock-up. This project sought to build on that foundation by constructing functioning ethnoarrays, comparing them with other methods of visual data representation, and refining ethnoarrays based on stakeholder feedback and new primary data collection.
