Expert stakeholders on the role of qualitative research in World Health Organisation guidelines

Qualitative research findings are sometimes used in guideline development, but usually in an ad hoc manner. We sought to explore how qualitative research could contribute to guideline development, identify examples of qualitative research being used to inform guideline development, and gather suggestions for how qualitative research might be incorporated more systematically in guideline development. Using a topic guide, in 2022-24, we interviewed experts who had participated in World Health Organization (WHO) guideline development. We used purposeful sampling, including qualitative researchers, guideline developers, guideline panel members, and implementation researchers. We interviewed 16 participants, and identified three themes: (i) respondents endorsed using qualitative research findings in developing WHO guidelines, and highlighted examples where this approach had been useful; (ii) recommendation questions in the guideline process are built on clinical decision-making, which can sometimes be too detached from social contexts for broader health problems; (iii) using qualitative research findings to help delineate context has a greater potential role in guidelines. We interpret these findings to indicate that qualitative research could be used more systematically, particularly to inform a broader framing of a health problem, or later in recommendations, to tailor to particular contexts.