Studies eligible for inclusion were those that qualitatively investigated patients’ experiences, views, attitudes to and perceptions of health care services for Multiple Sclerosis. No date restriction was imposed on searches as this was an original review. Qualitative research, for this purpose, was defined by the Cochrane qualitative methods group [7 (link)] as using both a qualitative data collection method and qualitative analysis. Quantitative and mixed method studies were therefore excluded.
We define experience as “Patients’ reports of how care was organised and delivered to meet their needs p.301” [15 (link)]. Patients’ reports could refer to either experience of health care services delivery and organisation overall or their experiences of care by specific health care personnel. We included studies that investigated adults (aged 18 years old and older) with a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, who had experience of utilising health care services at any time point. There were no restrictions on subtype of Multiple Sclerosis, gender, ethnicity or frequency of use of health care. Health care in this sense referred to routine clinical care (either state funded or privately funded) not trial protocols or interventions. Excluded studies included studies that focussed on self-management and studies that investigated quality of life.
Because of the focus on Multiple Sclerosis, studies were excluded if they used a mixed sample of various conditions (e.g. studies reported a mixed sample of people with neurological conditions) or if they used a sample of mixed respondents (i.e. people with Multiple Sclerosis and their carers) where results of patients with Multiple Sclerosis could not be clearly separated. If an article had a section or subtheme on health care services but this was not the main research area of the article, then that article was included; however only data from the relevant subtheme were extracted and included in the findings. Additional exclusion criteria were articles that only described carer or health care professional experiences not patient experiences. Conference abstracts, editorials and commentaries were not included.
We define experience as “Patients’ reports of how care was organised and delivered to meet their needs p.301” [15 (link)]. Patients’ reports could refer to either experience of health care services delivery and organisation overall or their experiences of care by specific health care personnel. We included studies that investigated adults (aged 18 years old and older) with a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, who had experience of utilising health care services at any time point. There were no restrictions on subtype of Multiple Sclerosis, gender, ethnicity or frequency of use of health care. Health care in this sense referred to routine clinical care (either state funded or privately funded) not trial protocols or interventions. Excluded studies included studies that focussed on self-management and studies that investigated quality of life.
Because of the focus on Multiple Sclerosis, studies were excluded if they used a mixed sample of various conditions (e.g. studies reported a mixed sample of people with neurological conditions) or if they used a sample of mixed respondents (i.e. people with Multiple Sclerosis and their carers) where results of patients with Multiple Sclerosis could not be clearly separated. If an article had a section or subtheme on health care services but this was not the main research area of the article, then that article was included; however only data from the relevant subtheme were extracted and included in the findings. Additional exclusion criteria were articles that only described carer or health care professional experiences not patient experiences. Conference abstracts, editorials and commentaries were not included.
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