National Centre for Research Methods

BackgroundThe number of cancer survivors aged older than 65 years is rising rapidly. Current evidence‐based exercise guidelines lack specific guidance for older cancer survivors as a result of insufficient evidence. An expert panel was convened to develop consensus‐based recommendations for exercise in older cancer survivors.MethodsThe development of recommendations was guided by the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation Evidence‐to‐Decision framework for good practice statements. The panel drew from the available literature, a Delphi survey of exercise and health professionals, other exercise guidelines, clinical and research expertise, and interest‐holder input provided by a community advisory board of older cancer survivors and caregivers (n = 11). Recommendations had to be deemed accessible (i.e., no added barriers) to older cancer survivors and feasible to implement. The panel voted on the strength of the recommendation for or against each statement, with consensus set at 85% agreement.ResultsConsensus was reached on 11 recommendations covering the following areas: medical evaluation/clearance for exercise, pre‐exercise assessment, exercise prescription, exercise tolerance and safety, exercise delivery, and behavioral support. The recommendations aimed to promote engagement in and uptake of appropriately prescribed exercise programming by older cancer survivors, while keeping barriers and risks as low as possible.ConclusionsOlder cancer survivors can benefit from appropriately prescribed exercise, which should be an essential component of their cancer care. Exercise and health professionals need to consider the unique needs of older cancer survivors to ensure that exercise is safe and effective for this population, while also reducing barriers to reach as many people as possible.

AimThe purpose of this study is to: (a) describe public health nursing roles over the course of the COVID‐19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada; (b) describe the contextual factors that influence public health nursing role implementation; and (c) describe nurses' perceived impact of their roles on client outcomes and professional/personal nursing practice.DesignDescriptive multiple case study.MethodsRecruitment of public health nurses (PHNs), working in direct service or administrative leadership positions, in an Ontario public health unit will be conducted through purposive and snowball sampling. Nursing roles will be compared and contrasted across three cases differentiated by geographic setting: urban, urban–rural, northern. In each geographic case, a priori estimates of sample size will include 10 PHNs providing direct care and at least five nurses in an administrative leadership role; with an overall estimated study sample size of 45 individuals. Demographic data will be collected using an online anonymous survey. Individual semi‐structured interviews with PHNs, and focus groups with nursing administrators will be conducted via telephone and audio‐recorded. Individual interviews and focus groups will be transcribed verbatim. Reflexive thematic analysis will be used to generate emergent themes in each case and cross‐case synthesis will be used to compare and contrast patterns across geographic cases.DiscussionExpected findings will provide an in‐depth analysis of the rapidly evolving roles and functions of PHNs throughout the COVID‐19 pandemic and their impact on individuals, families and communities. As well, findings will provide a new understanding about the contextual barriers and facilitators of PHN role implementation in their working environments.ImpactStudy findings can support decision‐making in relation to funding, resource allocation and supportive work structures and processes at a public health system and/or individual public health organization level.

This paper introduces a useful method for conducting creative social research into material objects and sensory phenomena, what we call the “pop-up mass object-elicitation stall” or “pop-up stall” for short. Our pop-up stalls involved using a curated collection of objects to elicit participant responses in commercial, community and public spaces. In the article, we position pop-up stalls as a material method that can be used within the facet methodology approach to offer strategic insights into research phenomena. We also relate pop-ups to intensive research approaches because of their rapid and voluminous production of varied qualitative data. We evaluate the pop-up stalls’ methodological effects and peculiarities, and explain for researchers things they might anticipate and consider during the planning, deployment and analytical phases of research. We propose three concepts for use in analyzing data generated by the pop-ups: situation, juxtaposition and suffusion.

Held in October 2018, The Meets Survey Science conference, also known as BigSurv18, provided a first-of-its-kind opportunity for survey researchers, statisticians, computer scientists, and data scientists to convene under the same roof. At this conference, scientists from multiple disciplines were able to exchange ideas about their work might influence and enhance the work of others. This was a landmark event, especially for survey researchers and statisticians, whose industry has been buffeted of late by falling response rates and rising costs at the same time as a proliferation of new tools and techniques, coupled with increasing availability of data, has resulted in Big Data approaches to describing and modelling human behavior.

The rise in ethical regulation of social research has brought about an increased interest in research ethics; much of this has focused on concerns about ethical regulation and its impact on social research rather than exploring the everyday challenges that researchers encounter in the process of research and how these are, or might be, managed in ethical ways. This special issue explores some of the ethical challenges that are raised in conducting qualitative social research in contexts which raise specific ethical challenges because of the nature of the participants or the specific methodological approach taken. These include research with children, research in global contexts, longitudinal research, e-research and data archiving and secondary analysis of qualitative material. Drawing on a range of research projects, these papers explore some of the key ethical challenges raised by these contexts and how researchers have engaged with the issues that arise.