On Monday 23rd June, the Leeds Institute of Health Sciences hosted a workshop entitled “Q Methodology in Health Research” which was led by Job van Exel from the University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and attended by 24 researchers from around the UK.
The workshop included a presentation of some of the research carried out by Job and colleagues including an ongoing cross-European study of decision making in healthcare which uses a web-based sorting tool. Janet Holt presented work from her PhD thesis on nurses attitudes to assisted dying highlighting the application of Q to studying healthcare ethics in practice. This was followed by a ‘Q surgery’, where three researchers presented an idea for a Q study which was then discussed by a panel and the other participants, and an ‘advanced workshop’ where practical issues of particular interest to the audiences were discussed. The day ended with a presentation by Job on ways to bring together different Q data sets for analysis and validation purposes.
The day was enjoyable, stimulating, and practically very useful too, underlining the importance of bringing users of Q methodology together to further develop and enhance the use of this approach in health research.
