Toward a metasynthesis of qualitative findings on motherhood in HIV-positive women

A qualitative metasynthesis of qualitative findings ought to be more than a mere summary of those findings. Yet the processes by which the interpretive innovation expected of qualitative metasynthesis projects can be achieved remain opaque. Several analytic devices for the metasynthesis of findings were clarified in the course of an ongoing methodological project involving 45 reports of qualitative studies of HIV-positive women. These devices include the creation of a taxonomy of findings, the explicit use of sustained comparisons, the translation of in vivo concepts, and the use of imported concepts. Any qualitative metasynthesis of findings constitutes an interpretation at least three times removed from the lives represented in them. Clarifying the analytic devices used to create such metasyntheses is essential to demonstrating that despite being far away from participants' lives, these interpretations remain close to them. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.