Both quantitative and qualitative research designs are applied in EBP to ensure efficiency. EBP usually creates a room to ensure that health institutions give patients and families the best care. Its outcomes entail patient and family satisfaction. As nurses strive to specialize in EBP, they are usually required to identify the best pieces of evidence that will support assessment and intervention processes that will improve the quality of their work. As a result, quantitative and qualitative research techniques have been identified to provide valuable knowledge in EBP. However, before applying the two, nurses are usually forced to identify the one that gives quality answers in their practices.
Qualitative and quantitative research designs differ from each other. For instance, quantitative research provides evidence that explains a given phenomenon in terms of values. Contrary, qualitative research is one that conducts investigations by looking at responses to questionings, collection of evidence, and also the provision of findings that did not exist earlier. These two have different strategies used to arrive at their conclusions (Schmidt & Brown, 2019) . For instance, the three major strategies of qualitative research are participant observations, which is a preferred technique for the data collection on naturally occurring behaviors. These in-depth observations analyze an individual’s history and also focus groups which are applied in data collection concerning a community’s cultural norms. On the contrary, quantitative research strategies include true experiments, quasi-experiments, and also non-experimental designs. The strategy of the two differ in contexts of analytical objects, types of questions posed, and also the kind of data that they produce. Also, they have several comparisons. For instance, quantitative research usually seeks to confirm a given phenomenon's hypothesis, whereas qualitative usually aims to explore a given phenomenon. Also, in terms of analytical, objective comparison, quantitative usually quantifies a variation, whereas qualitative usually describes the variation (Mack, 2005) . However, the critical distinction betwixt the two is their flexibility, whereby quantitative, which may entail questionnaires, are generally inflexible. In contrast, qualitative are usually flexible as they allow a more significant adaptation of interplay between participants, for instance, in EBP, a nurse and a patient.
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Conclusively, these two have both advantages and disadvantages. For instance, an advantage of the qualitative design is that it guarantees the use of open-ended questions, which may result in meaningful responses from participants, thus providing detailed answers to the researcher. Also, it creates openness, thus opening one's mind in coming up with new topics (Rahman, 2017). On the contrary, its disadvantages include loss of data, and also it can require multiple sessions; thus, requiring much time. On the other hand, the advantages of the quantitative design are that it allows a researcher to reach a high sample size, and also it allows the use of randomized samples; thus, it is time effective. Its limitations include difficulty in analyzing data as it requires skilled personnel, and also it is expensive and, at times, time-consuming.
References
Mack, N. (2005). Qualitative Research Methods. Retrieved from A Data Collector’s Field Guide: https://course.ccs.neu.edu/is4800sp12/resources/qualmethods.pdf
Schmidt, N. A., & Brown, J. M. (2019). Evidence-Based Practice for Nurses. Burlington, MA: Jonas & Bartlett Learning.
Rahman, M. S. (2017). The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches and Methods in Language" Testing and Assessment" Research: A Literature Review. Journal of Education and Learning , 6 (1), 102-112.
