Influencing Practice or Simply Esoteric? Researching Health Care Using Postmodern Approaches

Abstract

Increasingly, contemporary health literature has begun to explore the potential of postmodern approaches to enable new and different analyses of health care practice. Paradoxically, as the use of postmodern approaches has increased, so has the lack of clarity with respect to what constitutes a postmodern approach. Challenges to postmodern approaches to research have come from those who argue that they contribute nothing to either the understanding of the reality of health care or the improvement of the delivery of health care services. This article will explore what postmodern research approaches are and use examples of research to illustrate how such approaches can inform understandings of health and health care practice, thereby opening up possibilities for change. It is designed to encourage people with an interest in postmodern approaches to undertake research that has clear applicability to, and influence on, health care practice.