This is a clear and lively book intended for students and practitioners from a variety of healthcare backgrounds who want to gain a first foothold in understanding research. It is a highly engaging and very visually attractive introduction to research which students and practitioners will use to gain confidence and to develop as far as initiating small practice based research projects. The book will outline how to get started, how to formulate useful and answerable research questions, a range of methodologies set in terms of their usefulness and limitations, strategies for seeing the project through and writing up the results. Pitfalls and pointers are highlighted along the way.

Table of Contents

Section 1: Introduction 1. Introduction 2. General design issues 3. Reviewing the literature 4. Research ethics Section 2: Strategies 5. Action research 6. Case Studies 7. Ethnography 8. Experiments 9. Surveys 10. Systematic reviews Section 3: Collecting Data 11. Sampling 12. Interviews 13. Questionnaires 14. Observations Section 4: Analysis and Presentation 15. Introduction to analysis 16. Qualitative analysis 17. Quantitative analysis Section 5: Writing Up 1 Writing Up References

Reviews

Paul A Komesaroff MBBS, BSc(Hons)MA, PHD, FRACP December, 2004
"The work covers an astonishingly wide range of issues in a lucid, reliable and readable manner. Vigorous efforts are made to keep the material dynamic and accessible. The text manages to be both didactic and engaging. This is a significant achievement and will no doubt serve the purpose of providing a readable text and a useful reference guide."