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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the value of post‐modern psychosocial approaches to studying knowledge and practice construction in health care organizations and settings (HCO&S) and the increasing ability of qualitative research to furnish a deeper, more ecological, and more usable understanding of the social construction of health knowledge and practices.

The argument proposed in the paper is based on a critical literature review conducted on the Psychinfo, Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science databases.

Recent years have seen cultural changes in the values and goals of healthcare interventions that are deeply reconfiguring HCO&S. These changes are reframing HCO&S action and are highlighting the importance of understanding and managing not only the “expert context” but also the “lay contexts” of healthcare interventions. In an attempt to deal with these emergent changes (and challenges), HCO&S are taking advantage of new insights matured in the post‐modern turn of organizational analysis. In this frame, qualitative research proves suitable for connecting HCO&S needs and priorities with the new post‐modern paradigm of knowledge‐ and practice‐sharing in organizations.

The paper demonstrates the value of qualitative research in the analysis of HCO&S and casts light on the new research trends and new technical‐methodological options arising in this field.

The meanings attributed to the quality of a person's illness experience result from important processes of co‐construction not only between healthcare professionals and patients but also among patients and caregivers. In the case of advanced cancer, new treatments extend patients’ lives but they raise the problem of the quality of this “renewed time”. Lay contexts of exchanges appear crucial for orienting the attribution of meaning to the time with cancer and for sharing practices to manage it. Furthermore, the internet is becoming an important space in which cancer patients meet and construct knowledge regarding their illness. The aim of this paper is to study knowledge‐ and practice‐construction among advanced cancer patients and caregivers, and to explore the suitability of online forums for analysis of these processes.

The paper discusses the results of a qualitative study based on one online forum for long‐term cancer patients (second relapse) and one for caregivers. The discussions explored show how patients and caregivers attribute meanings to their time with cancer. Verbatim transcripts of the discussions were analyzed according to the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) procedure.

The findings suggest the system of medical representations regarding health and illness should take greater account of other (lay) systems of representations and that the internet could be a valuable resource to support the development of spontaneous networks of patient and caregivers through which to organize health interventions and to involve patients and caregivers more closely in the care and cure process.

The study examines the experiences of a particular subset of patients/caregivers who were internet‐literate and might be considered more “active” in their coping with the disease over a fairly limited time span. These potential limitations are being remedied in continuing research projects.

The authors’ experience with this research design suggests qualitative research may be particularly valuable in casting light on emergent phenomena such as spontaneous social networks on the internet, and in encouraging more participative forms of research engagement.

These findings may orient therapeutic interventions to be more closely attuned to the needs of long‐term cancer patients and their caregivers. Online forums enable participants to disclose experiences, share knowledge, and co‐construct “good practices” for illness management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a specific multi‐method approach with which to detect and analyze professional practices in order to support organizational reflection and change.

Based on a case study, the paper describes the methodological choices made during the research process. The qualitative potentials of narrative and ethnographic orientations, and a package of data gathering tools, are analyzed in depth.

The paper presents the advantages and drawbacks of tools to articulate practices and to develop hypotheses for change. It emphasizes the approach's innovative value and potential in contributing to knowledge sharing in organizations, and the implications for researchers and participants.

The paper furnishes concrete suggestions on how practitioners and researchers/consultants can be induced to pay particular attention to aspects of the operational knowledge that should accompany change processes. This appears even more strategic in healthcare organizations, characterized by the constant need to update the operational system in response to the introduction of new technologies, procedures, and protocols.

The paper discusses how research dimensions and results can be linked with action practices, while at the same time reducing the divide between researcher and practitioner. The value of the paper is that it presents tools known in the literature but analyzes them in regard to their use in real settings concerned with real‐world problems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine an oft‐neglected aspect of qualitative research practice – conducting a pilot – using the innovative approach of “e‐research” to generate both practical and methodological insights.

Using the authors’ “e‐research” pilot as a reflexive case study, key methodological issues are critically reviewed. This review is set in a broader context of the qualitative methods literature in which piloting appears largely as an implicit practice. Using a new and emerging approach (“e‐research”) provides a prompt to review “autopilot” tendencies and offers a new lens for analysing research practice.

The authors find that despite an initial focus on “practical” aspects of data collection within their “e‐research”, the pilot opened up a range of areas for further consideration. The authors review research ethics, collaborative research practices and data management issues specifically for e‐research but also reflect more broadly on potential implications for piloting within other research designs.

The authors aim to offer both practical and methodological insights for qualitative researchers, whatever their methodological orientation, so that they might develop approaches for piloting that are appropriate to their own research endeavours. More specifically, the authors offer tentative guidance to those venturing into the emerging area of “e‐research”.

This paper offers insight into an oft‐ignored aspect of qualitative research, whilst also engaging in an emerging area of methodological interest.

The purpose of the paper is to explore why it was considered useful and how it was possible to conduct a participatory action research (PAR) in a health‐care service experiencing conflictual dynamics (which affected service quality) and on the challenges this entailed. Specific attention is given to the action researchers’ role.

A methodological reflection is developed starting from theoretical considerations and a case study. In response to the committee group's request concerning the need to better understand and manage the criticalities and conflict episodes faced by a service for sufferers of Alzheimer's disease, the authors proposed and realized a PAR. The PAR is described considering: the process, some outcomes, the functions and actions performed by the action researchers, and the dilemmas and challenges they faced.

The case study revealed it was fundamental for the action researchers to perform a constant mediating function when conducting a PAR in an organization experiencing conflictual dynamics. How this function was carried out is described. Furthermore, the dilemmas, challenges and risks faced by the action researchers in proposing this PAR are addressed.

In this PAR the main limitations and open issues concern both the possibility of assessing outcomes and processes in a medium to long time frame and the cyclical turnover of patients and caregivers, raising the question of legacy.

In analyzing a specific case, the authors focus upon both the indicators that allowed them to assess usefulness, feasibility and sustainability of the PAR in a conflictual context and the functions assumed, actions realized, and challenges faced by the action researchers.

The aim of this paper is to examine the benefits of undertaking mixed methods social network analysis (SNA) to investigate patterns of interpersonal relationships in healthcare delivery. Although SNA has roots in anthropological and ethnographic research, recent emphasis has been on the mathematical properties of social networks utilising graph theory and statistical analysis. While such studies may present interesting data on the structure of ties, this paper argues that they sidestep other important elements of patterns of social relationships; their meaning and their implications for network members. The paper identifies how SNA survey can be employed alongside ethnographic data within a qualitative framework.

The paper reports on a study that investigated how knowledge sharing in social networks can contribute to patient safety in surgical care involving a social network survey, qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations.

Results describe how each research method illuminated different elements of professional practice networks. These focus on the additional elements of networks identified through qualitative methods. The discussion examines how qualitative and quantitative findings relate to each other and could be combined within an overall qualitative methodology.

The paper answers the call for a greater utilisation of network methods in healthcare studies; demonstrates the benefits of qualitative research on social networks; and presents data on the contribution of health professionals’ interpersonal relationships in the production of safe patient care.

Work-based placements are central to the university education of allied health and social work (AHSW) students. As a result of COVID-19, the clinical learning environment of students' work-based placements was dramatically altered resulting in numerous documented challenges. This inter-disciplinary study aimed to evaluate AHSW students' perceptions and experiences of completing a diverse range of work-based placements during COVID-19.

This study was a mixed-method inter-disciplinary study using an anonymous online survey consisting of multiple choice, Likert scale and free text questions. Mixed-methods design supported amalgamation of insights from positivism and interpretivism perspectives and enabled research questions to be answered with both breadth and depth. 436 students were invited to participate who were enrolled in five AHSW educational university programmes: speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, radiation therapy and social work. Data collected was analysed using both quantitative (descriptive and analytical statistics) and qualitative (thematic analysis) methods.

118 students participated (response rate: 27%) representing a range of AHSW disciplines who attended diverse placement settings. While there was extensive disruption in the learning environment leading to increased levels of stress and concern, a triad of individual and systemic supports helped to ensure positive work-based placement experiences and student success for the majority of AHSW students during COVID-19: (1) university preparation and communication; (2) placement site and supervisor support; and (3) students' resilience and capacity to adapt to a changed work-place environment.

This inter-disciplinary study reports the work-based placement experiences from the professional education programmes of healthcare students during the COVID-19 pandemic, giving a unique view of their perspectives and learning during this unprecedented crisis.