Claiming our core: Appraising qualitative evidence for nursing questions about human response and meaning

The growing acceptance of evidence-based practice (EBP) principles in nursing raises the possibility that only question domains central to medical practice—therapy, harm, prognosis, and medical diagnosis—and “best evidence” appropriate to those domains will be valued. We propose incorporation of 2 additional question domains—human response and meaning—as particularly important for nursing practice, and we argue that the strongest evidence for these questions arises from qualitative research traditions. We discuss the evaluation and application of qualitative evidence for practice and identify unresolved issues for further discussion within the discipline.