Provider perspectives on general practice in Henan, China: a mixed-methods study

Zhu, Jiming; Ariana, Proochista

The coding framework and emerging themes were identified in an inductive and interactive process. JZ developed a preliminary coding framework after full familiarisation with the data, inspired by the attributes of general practice (widely discussed in the primary care literature) adapted to the Chinese context (such as consideration of TCM). Refining the framework involved constant comparison and discussion with PA. All the questions used for the quantitative survey were derived from these codes/themes and FGDs, and were tested at the beginning of the second-round survey ( Figure 3 ) so that the questions were revised appropriately to be understood by the respondents in the same way they were understood by the researcher. In fact, the second-round survey also included further communications with relevant health officials, experts and previous interviewees -this allowed the interactive approach and the respondent validation of the qualitative study. 15 The coding framework continued to be fine-grained together with the second round of analysis (mainly quantitative analysis; Figure 3 ). This mixed methods approach is a 'fusion' of the qualitative and quantitative elements so that they 'fulfil' one another to reach reliability and robustness." Then quantitative data were cleaned and analysed using Stata 12. Standard summary statistics were reported about PITs' understanding of GPs. Chi-square statistics were used to test statistical significance of the consensus among the three groups. [16] [17] [18] This study is the first to use original primary data from all the three GP-related groups in China, to examine their characteristics and understanding of general practice through rigorous descriptive analysis and significance testing.