Abstract

Background: Though mixed-method approaches to medical and associated research are now relatively common, their use in physiotherapy research of musculoskeletal conditions remains rare.

Contents: Argument for use of qualitative open-ended questions as an adjunct to common quantitative methods is given. Examples of results from a mixed-methods study are used to demonstrate the argument.

Conclusions: The article concludes that using a comparatively simple method of adding open-ended questions to a quantitative self-report based questionnaire methodology can add significant value and depth to both the results and conclusions of studies undertaken.