Qualitative Critique: Should Nurses Vaccinate Girls Who Do Not Have Parental Consent?

The article that I have chosen to qualitatively critique is A qualitative study to assess school nurses' views on vaccinating 1213-year-old school girls against human papillomavirus without parental consent.

The research question:

Should nurses vaccinate girls who do not have parental consent?

The author justifies the importance of the research question. According to the article, parental consent for routine vaccination of schoolgirls between the age of 12 and 13 against human papillomavirus is recommended. However, girls may be able to consent themselves legally. Nurses are often confused when administering the vaccine to girls whose parents have not accepted the vaccination. Hence, the objective of the research is to clarify the situation ("From Description to Critique," n.d.).

The designs and methods used in the article are systematic ("Qualitative and the Quantitative," n.d.). As discussed by Stretch et al. (2009), the article started an introduction, then employed qualitative research methods in collecting the views of the nurses in relation to administering the vaccination to the girls without parental consent, then the data collected was analyzed and results discussed. The paper ultimately gave a conclusion as to whether nurses should give the vaccination to the girls regardless of their parental consents.

Based on the methods of data collection employed in the research and data analysis process, the study is reliable and valid. The selection of the nurses from each nursing team for the interview was even since each team was presented by one nurse.

Based on the findings of the research, the conclusions are reasonable. Nurses were still unwilling to vaccinate girls whose parents refused to grant them permission. The girls who request for vaccination after the refusal of their parents to be vaccinated would have to be offered vaccination at a different venue.

The research article effectively covered the study, beginning with the right methods of data collection, presentation and analysis. However, it does not provide limitations of the study and some of its recommendations are not applicable.

I do not agree with the authors conclusion since the method employed in data collection were not effective hence could not have provided the right results which the author derived their conclusion from.

The authors succeeded in the purpose of the study but they should concentrate more on detailed data collection and analysis of the research findings in their next research.

References

From Description to Critique. (n.d.). Qualitative Research Through Case Studies, 111-131. doi:10.4135/9781849209724.n6

The Qualitative and the Quantitative. (n.d.). Blending Qualitative & Quantitative Research Methods in Theses and Dissertations, 1-14. doi:10.4135/9781412983525.n1

Stretch, R., McCann, R., Roberts, S. A., Elton, P., Baxter, D., & Brabin, L. (2009). A qualitative study to assess school nurses' views on vaccinating 1213-year-old schoolgirls against human papillomavirus without parental consent. BMC Public Health, 9(1). doi:10.1186/1471-2458-9-254