• Christopher T Lim, Avia Tadmor, Daisuke Fujisawa, James J MacDonald, Emily R Gallagher, Justin Eusebio, Vicki A Jackson, Jennifer S Temel, Joseph A Greer, Teresa Hagan, and Elyse R Park.
• 1 Harvard Medical School , Boston, Massachusetts.
• J Palliat Med. 2017 Aug 1; 20 (8): 857-861.

BackgroundWhile vast opportunities for using qualitative methods exist within palliative care research, few studies provide practical advice for researchers and clinicians as a roadmap to identify and utilize such opportunities.ObjectiveTo provide palliative care clinicians and researchers descriptions of qualitative methodology applied to innovative research questions relative to palliative care research and define basic concepts in qualitative research. Body: We describe three qualitative projects as exemplars to describe major concepts in qualitative analysis of early palliative care: (1) a descriptive analysis of clinician documentation in the electronic health record, (2) a thematic content analysis of palliative care clinician focus groups, and (3) a framework analysis of audio-recorded encounters between patients and clinicians as part of a clinical trial.ConclusionsThis study provides a foundation for undertaking qualitative research within palliative care and serves as a framework for use by other palliative care researchers interested in qualitative methodologies.

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