Response to letter by Zhijie Xu: Why should mixed methods matter to primary care physicians and other providers?

Thanks for your positive,wonderful response to our article on‘Survey Research and Mixed Methods’.The question that you raise at the beginning is an important one for all countries around the world:‘Why should mixed methods matter to primary care physicians?’To answer the question requires first defining what we mean by mixed methods research.You provide a good definition by mentioning how in this form of research,investigators use both quantitative and qualitative approaches to collect and analyse data,integrate the data and draw conclusions.I would add to this the three core ideas of mixed methods:integration,insight and designs.What distinguishes mixed methods from other approaches is the integration of the quantitative and qualitative data rather than gathering only one form of data or gathering both,but keeping the databases separate.