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The SRQR reporting guideline helps authors write qualitative research articles that can be understood and used by a wide audience. This page summarises SRQR and how to use it.

Journals endorsing SRQR 150+

SRQR: Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research

Version: 1.1. This is the latest version ✅

How to use this reporting guideline

You can use reporting guidelines throughout your research process.

• When writing: consult the full guidance when writing manuscripts, protocols, and applications. The summary below provides a useful overview, and each item links to fuller guidance with explanations and examples.
• After writing: Complete a checklist and include it with your journal submission.
• To learn: Use SRQR and our training to develop as an academic and build writing skills.

However you use SRQR, please cite it.

Applicability criteria

Use SRQR for writing qualitative research articles. You can use it when describing all kinds of qualitative approaches, methods, and designs.

You can also use this guideline for:

• writing proposals or protocols (use the items within the Introduction and Method sections).
• reviewing the reporting of an article, but not for appraising its quality.

Do not use SRQR for:

• writing a qualitative evidence synthesis, use ENTREQ instead.
• appraising the quality of qualitative research, use an appraisal tool like CASP-Qual instead.

Related reporting guidelines:

• JARS Qual for writing qualitative, psychology manuscripts
• ENTREQ for writing qualitative evidence syntheses
• For writing studies involving interviews or focus groups, you can use this guideline or COREQ.

For appraising research consider:

• CASP-Qual

Summary of guidance

Although you should describe all items below, you can decide how to order and prioritize items most relevant to your study, findings, context, and readership whilst keeping your writing concise. You can read how SRQR was developed in the FAQs.

Item name What to write

Title & Abstract

Title Describe the nature and topic of the study. Identify the study as qualitative or indicate the approach or data collection methods.

Abstract Summarise the key elements of the study using the abstract format of the intended publication.

Introduction

Problem Formulation Describe the problem/phenomenon studied, its significance, relevant theory and empirical work, and gaps in current knowledge.

Purpose or research question Describe the purpose of the study and specific objectives or questions.

Methods

Qualitative approach and research paradigm Describe your qualitative approach, your guiding theory (if appropriate), and research paradigm, and reasons for your choices.

Researcher characteristics and reflexivity Describe how researchers’ characteristics may influence the research, including personal attributes, qualifications/experience, relationship with participants, assumptions, and/or presuppositions; potential or actual interaction between researchers’ characteristics and the research questions, approach, methods, results and/or transferability.

Context Describe the setting/site(s) in which the study was conducted, why it was selected, and any other salient contextual factors that may influence the study.

Sampling strategy Describe how and why research participants, documents, or events were selected; criteria for deciding when no further sampling was necessary, and the rationale for those criteria.

Ethical issues pertaining to human subjects Describe any approval by an appropriate ethics review board and participant consent, or explain any lack thereof. Describe any other confidentiality and data security issues.

Data collection methods Describe the types of data collected; details of data collection procedures including (as appropriate) start and stop dates of data collection and analysis, iterative process, triangulation of sources/methods, and modification of procedures in response to evolving study findings. Describe your rationale for these choices.

Data collection instruments and technologies Describe any instruments (e.g., interview guides, questionnaires) and devices (e.g., audio recorders) used for data collection; describe if/how the instrument(s) changed over the course of the study.

Units of study Describe the number and relevant characteristics of participants, documents, or events included in the study. Describe the level of participation.

Data processing Describe the methods for processing data prior to and during analysis, including transcription, data entry, data management and security, verification of data integrity, data coding, and anonymisation / deidentification of excerpts.

Data analysis Describe the process by which inferences, themes, etc. were identified and developed, including the researchers involved in data analysis; usually references a specific paradigm or approach. Describe why you chose this process.

Techniques to enhance trustworthiness Describe any techniques to enhance trustworthiness and credibility of data analysis,(e.g., member checking, triangulation, audit trail). Describe why you chose these techniques.

Results

Synthesis and interpretation Describe the main findings (e.g., interpretations, inferences, and themes); might include development of a theory or model, or integration with prior research or theory.

Links to empirical data Provide evidence (e.g., quotes, field notes, text excerpts, photographs) to substantiate analytic findings.

Discussion

Integration with prior work, implications, transferability, and contribution(s) to the field Summarize the main findings, explain how findings and conclusions connect to, support, elaborate on, or challenge conclusions of earlier scholarship; discuss the scope of application/generalizability; identify unique contribution(s) to scholarship in a discipline or field.

Limitations Discuss the trustworthiness and limitations of findings

Other

Conflicts of interest Describe any potential sources of influence or perceived influence on study conduct and conclusions. Describe how these were managed.

Funding Describe sources of funding and other support. Describe the role of funders in data collection, interpretation, and reporting.

Training and Support

The UK EQUATOR Centre runs training on how to write using reporting guidelines.

Including the appropriate EQUATOR checklist as part of your submission goes a long way to help establish trust between authors, editors, and reviewers. That’s why our editorial team ensures that applicable reporting checklists are completed during the peer review process, with a completed checklist at submission greatly helping editors and peer reviewers to assess the work.

Adrian Aldcroft

Editor in Chief, BMJ Open

Ready to get started?

Research Paradigm

The set of beliefs and assumptions that guide the research process. These commonly include positivist, post-positivist, constructivist or interpretivist, and critical theory. Qualitative research generally draws from a post-positivist or constructivist/interpretivist paradigm."

Instruments

Data collection instruments include (but are not limited to) interview or focus group guides, observational protocols and prompts for field notes, and data extraction or coding protocols for selection and analysis of documents, photographs, videos, or other artifacts"

Bias

A term drawn from quantitative research, bias technically means a systematic error, where a particular research finding deviates from a ‘true’ finding. This might come about through errors in the manner of interviewing, or by errors in sampling. In qualitative research this is a problematic concept, since by definition the qualitative researcher is part of the process, and all researchers are different. This human factor has been said to be both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of qualitative method. What can be done in commercial qualitative research, however, is to minimise obvious and avoidable sources of bias, for example by not confining all the fieldwork to one social group or geographic location, by taking steps to recognise the personal views of the researcher, (using techniques such as bracketing), and by working in teams.

Sampling strategy

Several sampling strategies are commonly used in qualitative research, although most fall under the umbrella of purposeful (or purposive) sampling.

Purposeful sampling means that participants, documents, or events are selected for their relevance to the research question, based on guiding theory or experiences and assumptions of the researchers. Over the course of the research process, researchers may determine that additional or different participants, documents, or events should be included to address the research question.

Other sampling techniques, such as theoretical sampling (seeking examples of theoretical constructs), snowball sampling (using study participants to identify additional participants who meet study criteria), and convenience sampling (including any volunteers with no or minimal criteria for inclusion) may be appropriate depending on the question and approach, so long as the authors provide explanation and justification.

Qualitative Approach

A qualitative "approach" is a general way of thinking about conducting qualitative research. It describes, either explicitly or implicitly, the purpose of the qualitative research, the role of the researcher(s), the stages of research, and the method of data analysis. Commonly used approaches include ethnography, grounded theory, case study, phenomenology, and narrative research.

Data Collection Methods

Researchers may choose to use information from multiple sources, contexts, and/or time points depending on their approach and research question(s). Data collection methods include (but are not limited to) interviews, focus groups, observations (direct or indirect via video), and review of written text, photographs, and other documents or materials. See {{< meta items.data-collection-instruments.title >}} for triangulation.

Iterative

Qualitative research often occurs as an iterative process, meaning that researchers begin data analysis before they complete data collection. The data collection and analysis process may occur in phases or stages. As part of an iterative collection-analysis process, researchers will often alter their data collection methods to explore their preliminary impressions in greater depth and/or actively pursue confirming and disconfirming perspectives.

Study period

The start and end dates for data collection and analysis.

Ethnography

The scientific description of peoples and cultures with their customs, habits, and mutual differences.

Read more

Grounded theory

A method consisting of a set of systematic, but flexible, guidelines for conducting inductive qualitative inquiry aimed toward theory construction. This method focuses squarely on the analytic phases of research, although both data collection and analysis inform and shape each other and are conducted in tandem.

Read more

Degree of participation

For example, if some participants were observed and interviewed and others only interviewed, or if some participants completed multiple interviews and others completed a single interview, these variations should be explained.

Unit of analysis

In qualitative research, the unit of analysis is not necessarily the same as the unit of sampling (e.g., individual participants or events). Instead, some approaches use specific events as the unit of analysis, such as mentions of a particular topic or experience, or observations of a particular behavior or phenomenon, while others use groups rather than individual group participants. This specification has implications for how the data are organized and analyzed as well as the inferences drawn from the data.

Reflexivity

Reflexivity refers to intentional, systematic consideration of the potential or actual effects of the researcher(s) on all aspects of the study process.

Transferability

The transferability of a research finding is the extent to which it can be applied in other contexts and studies. It is thus equivalent to or a replacement for the terms generalizability and external validity.

Generalizability

The appropriate scope for generalization of the findings beyond the study (e.g., to other settings, populations, time periods, circumstances)

Analytic findings

Analytic findings may include interpretations, inferences, narratives, themes, and models.

Frequency counts

The frequency of specific themes or codes.