However, the scope of that literature search probably should have included other relevant terms such as empathy, attitude, and (perhaps) burnout, since negative changes in vocational satisfaction could conceivably impact on caring in nursing. It also seems to have been a mistake to exclude data form nursing students, particularly in relation to the potential relevance of attitudinal and motivational factors common to those who select nursing as a profession in the first place. That choice would only have lent greater support to any conclusions about interpersonal factors associated with caring. Given those limitations based on the choice to restrict the data to literature containing the word caring from a population that excluded nursing students, the methodology relied upon was of high quality because it likely identified all of the available literature based on those parameters. The use of coding of highly qualitative data seems to have been an artificial way of transforming that data into quantifiable terms and it is not...

Specifically, the attempt to reduce highly qualitative data into quantitative form through coding does not seem to have increased its value over what it might have presented in a purely qualitative analysis. Ultimately, the reviewer concluded, in essence, that caring in nursing is determined by the needs and receptivity of patients, the interpersonal relationships between nurses and their patients, the maturity and moral foundations of practitioners, degree of professional expertise, and the nature of the vocational environment. It would not seem that any of those conclusions would require formal study to develop, much less by reducing qualitative data to quantitative form.
Reference

Finfgeld-Connett, D. "Meta-synthesis of caring in nursing." Journal of Clinical Nursing,

Vol. 17 (2008): 196 -- 204.