Final answer:
The process of synthesizing results from all available qualitative studies and analyzing their strengths and weaknesses refers to a systematic review. This method involves a structured approach to evaluating both qualitative and quantitative research, distinguishing it from a meta-analysis, which often focuses only on quantitative studies.
Step-by-step explanation:
The process described in the question involves synthesizing the results from all available qualitative studies in a specific area, providing an analysis of the results, and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of these studies. This is associated with the term systematic review, which is a methodical and comprehensive process to summarize all the empirical evidence that fits pre-specified eligibility criteria to answer a specific research question. Unlike a meta-analysis, which typically focuses on combining and statistically analyzing the results of quantitative studies, a systematic review may include both quantitative and qualitative research, and when it involves qualitative studies, it may be referred to more specifically as a qualitative systematic review or meta-synthesis. This differs from a simple literature review, which surveys existing literature on a topic more broadly and is often less structured, or a narrative synthesis, which qualitatively explores the findings of multiple studies without a stringent methodological approach.
Conducting a systematic review involves several key steps: identifying relevant studies, evaluating their quality, extracting data, and synthesizing the findings. In the case of qualitative research, this process takes into careful consideration the unique methodologies, thematic structures, and interpretation frequently employed in qualitative studies. The strength of a study, and accordingly of the systematic review, can depend on the selection and implementation of the appropriate methods of gathering data, such as interviews, surveys, or ethnographic field studies.