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Nursing Reports
  • Nursing Reports is published by MDPI from Volume 10 Issue 1 (2020). Previous articles were published by another publisher in Open Access under a CC-BY (or CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, and they are hosted by MDPI on mdpi.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with PAGEPress.
  • Review
  • Open Access

14 April 2016

What can we expect from grounded theory? a theoretical critique

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and
1
School of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
2
School of Nursing and Midwifery, Nursing and Midwifery Care Research Center, University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
3
Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran
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Abstract

The research approach of grounded theory (henceforth as GT) is one of the common qualitative methodology in social sciences and lately in Nursing which has constantly been confronted with ambiguities regarding its application and particularly its operationalization. It is attempted in this article to offer the true nature, application and measures for a more suitable application of this approach by reviewing its relevant literature in different disciplines. This article is the result of reviewing different databases through 1990 to 2011 and also referring to the main texts in GT research. At the end, it must be mentioned that although the GT research approach is an appealing method, especially in Nursing and enjoys a lot of rigor with regard to dealing with the favorite phenomena of the nurses, the researcher’s expectations must be realistic about it. In addition, alongside clarification, which is a social process among a group of individuals, it can be used in presenting model and instrumentation by following the principles and also for providing examination and caring manuals and the required interventions by using the qualitative outcome analysis in order to operationalize it.

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