New trends in qualitative health research: the pandemic aftermath

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen new ways of doing things emerge. Various aspects of everyday life have been digitalized. What was once face-to-face, in context, is now done at a distance. For better or worse, healthcare and health research also had repercussions. On the one hand, there were aspects that improved, while others left something to be desired. I will not list them, because they have already been widely debated and it is now important to discuss what brought us to this page. In the particular field of qualitative research in health, also evident in this edition of NTQR, new trends can be observed in the way of researching, collecting data and producing results. We can even say that the successive confinements and constraints in data collection in the field have led us to a more reflexive process, to look more at what others have produced. We have seen, in the different scientific areas, an increase in literature reviews and other ways of collecting data, such as those latent on the internet. But this is not necessarily harmful, on the contrary, it has created opportunities to map and systematise knowledge. Not reinventing the wheel, but noting the "wheels" that exist, what is done, what needs to be done, innovating and finding ways to improve healthcare in its different perspectives. Perhaps due to better accessibility to data and easier logistics, scoping reviews, for example, sprang up, which, based on the qualitative approach, are one of the best ways to establish the state of the art of what we want to know. We have also observed a growth in thinking outside the box, using visual methods to gather information, such as images and even videographic analysis. We live overwhelmed with communications, content created and exchanges of information, by ordinary citizens, service users, professionals, scientists and many other people. A vast amount of unexplored data that has now emerged, perhaps because the imposed brake of our routines has led us to look more reflectively and give it a chance. All this to say that the more sedentary research has not only changed the vision of doing scientifically valid research but has also reinvented processes for obtaining data that are visible, but that were rarely used. Systematizing dispersed knowledge, shortens the time and resources spent and accelerates the acquisition of skills and, as is often said, the practice based on evidence. The evidence exists, perhaps it is not within everyone's reach, so it is no disrespect to gather, systematize, facilitate the interpretation and publish knowledge produced by others. To research from the office in a protocoled and structured way, is to produce knowledge, which should be poured and drunk by those without access and without availability to start investigations from scratch. Sometimes the best knowledge has already been produced, let us guide its discovery!