Quantitative research is the most successful approach to resolving EBP-related clinical problems due to its essential characteristics, such as the production of breadth-oriented data and reliance on random sampling. Quantitative methods emphasize experiment-based reasoning, and their goal of increasing the breadth of existing knowledge leads to significant advantages in terms of results’ transferability (Yale University, 2015). In contrast, with their depth-oriented approach and interpretative analytics, qualitative methods make data analysis more time-consuming, which cannot go unnoticed for possible sample sizes (Yale University, 2015). Aside from everyday practice, this tendency finds manifestation in mental health nursing studies reviewed in the previous section. Thus, the abovementioned qualitative studies interview between twenty and sixty-four participants, whereas the RCT’s sample exceeds one hundred and seventy patients (Charania et al., 2019; Keers et al., 2018; Van der Zalm et al., 2020). Randomization adds to samples’ representativeness, thus maximizing the chances of getting similar positive results when implementing the quantitatively approved interventions (Van der Zalm et al., 2020; Yale University, 2015). The integration of EBP into practice requires the selection of large-scale studies with representative samples, which is why quantitative studies remain the basis of EBP.
The position of studies that are based on quantitative data in the globally accepted hierarchy of evidence is another characteristic of quantitative research that makes it more applicable to EBP problem resolution. In terms of the influences on clinical decision-making, the hierarchy is dominated by systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials, studies with randomization, true experimental research, and meta-analytical research reports, whereas descriptive approaches occupy the lowest levels, which points to their limited ability to produce generalizable and transferable findings (Baixinho et al., 2020). Notably, even the advocates of qualitative research for the generation of EBP interventions acknowledge its inability to substitute the quantitative deductive method (Baixinho et al., 2020). It results in the proposals to further develop descriptive methods to improve their potential in supplementing quantitative findings but without challenging the latter’s hegemony (Baixinho et al., 2020). Therefore, quantitative methods’ widely-recognized evidential value adds to their appropriateness for addressing EBP problems.
To sum up, the two groups of research methodologies influence nursing EBP in dissimilar ways. Qualitative approaches mainly generate theoretical assumptions for further exploration, whereas quantitative evidence is capable of producing non-abstract practice improvement recommendations. Due to a set of characteristics, including the position in the breadth-depth conflict, randomization, sample sizes, and representativeness, quantitative methods remain more appropriate for addressing practice problems pertaining to EBP
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