Qualitative nursing research focuses on patients and/or health professionals' experiences. Through this approach the reality of people's experiences and lives are not over simplified and subsumed into a number or a statistic (Hoffmann et al 2013, p. 223).

In general, quantitative research seeks to understand the causal or correlational relationship between variables through testing hypotheses, whereas qualitative research seeks to understand a phenomenon within a real-world context through the use of interviews and observation.

As a particular qualitative approach in nursing research, phenomenology has the distinction of turning the researcher on the self, that is, on his or her own reflective and intuitive grasp of experience. The researcher's direct experience constitutes the data, whether immediate or vicarious.

Quantitative research attempts to establish statistically significant relationships, addresses questions by measuring and describing, is based on objective measurement and observation, and is concerned with correlation and causation (Hamer and Collinson 2014).