In the course of our supervisory work over the years, we have noticed that qualitative research
tends to evoke a lot of questions and worries, so-called Frequently Asked Questions. This journal
series of four articles intends to provide novice researchers with practical guidance for conducting
high-quality qualitative research in primary care. By ‘novice’ we mean Master’s students and
junior researchers, as well as experienced quantitative researchers who are engaging in qualitative
research for the first time. This series addresses their questions and provides researchers,
readers, reviewers and editors with references to criteria and tools for judging the quality of
papers reporting on qualitative research. This first article describes the key features of qualitative
research, provides publications for further learning and reading, and gives an outline of the
series.