The use of morphine to treat cancer related pain: a worked example of critical interpretive synthesis

This chapter outlines an evolving approach, critical interpretive synthesis (CIS), to synthesizing a diverse body of qualitative and quantitative research literature. CIS shares characteristics with multilevel synthesis methods and is a useful synthesis technique for allowing findings from effectiveness literature to “interface” with the findings from qualitative research, thus enabling a synthesis between the findings from the two research paradigms. In this respect, it is a useful method for representing the views and perceptions of healthcare consumers about interventions that have been shown to be effective. A worked example of CIS illustrates the methods used in setting a question, searching the literature, quality appraisal, and analytical techniques.