Qualitative social research - Origins and approaches for research in family medicine - Part 2: Qualitative content analysis vs. grounded theory

After giving an introduction to the background, objectives and methodology of qualitative social research in part 1, this article compares two frequently used qualitative approaches in family medicine research: qualitative content-analysis and grounded theory. Both methods include the modeling of categories. However, both the process of modeling as well as the utilization of categories for the interpretation of the analyzed material differ considerably between the two approaches. We demonstrate the differences in the process of coding with the help of an exemplary transcript. We show that content analysis is particularly suitable to gain descriptions of social circumstances and facts, which makes this method appropriate for the theory-led analysis of large quantities of text. Grounded Theory is most suitable for a research-approach without a pre-set theoretical framework and results in the development of an empirically theory. © Deutscher Ärzte-Verlag.