Interpretive Description: Where Did it Come From, and Where is it Going?

This introductory workshop will locate the Interpretive Description methodology within the history and tradition of qualitative research in nursing, examine its philosophical underpinnings and their consequent implications for design decision making, and reflect on what all that means for designing a study that reflects the very real knowledge needs of an applied discipline.

BIO: Sally Thorne has deep roots in the study of chronic illness and cancer experience as well as scholarship in the philosophy of science, including the epistemological basis of nursing disciplinary knowledge and the nature of evidence claims in the increasingly complex health policy environment. As Associate Editor for Qualitative Health Research and Editor-in-Chief of Nursing Inquiry, she is actively engaged in the ideas of the discipline and the evolution of the methodologies through which they are produced. She is also the author of a body of applied qualitative methodological writing, including the text Interpretive Description, now in second edition.