Getting Started in Health Research E-Book

David Bowers

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 259

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

By the time you've read this book, you'll be ready to design your own research project

Not everyone in clinical research is a scientific investigator. In fact, a large proportion of health professionals undertaking a research project are working in clinical care, as junior doctors, nurses or allied health professionals. For them a book that begins with the basics of study design and takes them through all the stages to data collection, analysis, and submission for publication is vital. Getting Started in Health Research is the answer. It provides fundamental information on:

• Framing the research question
• Performing the literature search
• Choosing the study design
• Collecting data
• Getting funding
• Recruiting participants
• Writing your paper

Lively case studies provide a continuous narrative, addressing the pitfalls and problems that can occur.

Calling upon their vast experience of teaching health research methodology, these authors have turned a seemingly daunting task into a challenging and enjoyable prospect.

The companion of Understanding Clinical Papers  www.wiley.com/buy/9780470091302

Reviews of Understanding Clinical Papers

"...an excellent basis for all who intend to write scientific texts as well as those reading, evaluating, and trying to understand the results..."
Clinical Chemistry, May 2007

"What makes this book unique is that each point presented is illustrated with excerpts from actual papers, often three or four per chapter...this is a very effective teaching device."
Journal of the American Medical Association, December 26, 2006

"What strikes the reader ... straight away is clarity ... promises to become a recommended text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses."
Journal of Tropical Pediatrics, September 2006

"This book should be an essential addition to the personal libraries of all health care workers . . . "
Oncology, 2002

Leseprobe

Contents

Preface

PART I Limbering Up

CHAPTER 1 Turning Your General Aim Into a Specific Question

THE BEGINNING

WHAT ARE YOUR AIMS?

WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION?

GETTING THE QUESTION CLEAR

FINAL CHECKS

CHAPTER 2 Taking a Preliminary Look at What Has Already Been Done

IS THERE ANY POINT?

GATEWAYS – A SIMPLE WAY INTO SEARCHING

YOU CAN TALK WITH COLLEAGUES

YOU CAN TALK TO YOUR ACADEMIC OR CLINICAL LIBRARIAN

PART II On Your Marks

CHAPTER 3 Coming Up With an Initial Plan of Action

THE INITIAL PLAN

STUDY DESIGN

CHOOSING A SETTING

DECIDING ON A SAMPLE

DECIDING ON MEASURES

CHAPTER 4 Carrying Out a Systematic Search

HAVING A MUCH CLOSER LOOK

THE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW PROTOCOL

QUALITATIVE SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS

CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 5 Building a Team

THE NEED FOR OTHER PEOPLE

WHO IS TO BE ON THE TEAM?

PART III Get Set

CHAPTER 6 Choosing the Best Study Design

WHAT ARE THE RESEARCH DESIGN OPTIONS?

QUALITATIVE METHODS

DECIDING ON HOW THE QUESTION POINTS TOWARDS THE DESIGN

CHAPTER 7 Selecting Samples for Quantitative Research

WHICH SUBJECTS? – THE SAMPLE

THE STUDY AND TARGET POPULATIONS

GETTING YOUR SAMPLE SUBJECTS WHEN YOUR RESEARCH IS QUANTITATIVE

PROBABILITY SAMPLING

NON-PROBABILISTIC SAMPLING

CONSECUTIVE SAMPLING

CONVENIENCE SAMPLING

SELECTING CONTROLS FOR A CASE-CONTROL STUDY

INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIA

HAVING GOT YOUR STUDY PARTICIPANTS HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET THE DATA FROM THEM?

CHAPTER 8 Selecting Samples for Qualitative Research

GETTING YOUR SAMPLE PARTICIPANTS – THE QUALITATIVE RESEARCH CASE

CONVENIENCE SAMPLES

PURPOSIVE SAMPLING

AN EXAMPLE OF MAXIMUM VARIATION SAMPLING (OR SAMPLING FOR DIVERSITY)

THEORETICAL SAMPLING

HAVING GOT YOUR SAMPLE HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET THE DATA FROM IT?

PART IV Wait for It

CHAPTER 9 Deciding What Information to Collect

WHAT DO WE NEED TO KNOW?

RECORDING INFORMATION IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

RECORDING INFORMATION IN QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

CHAPTER 10 Tackling Confounders

INTRODUCTION

CONFOUNDING – WHAT IS IT?

A PLAUSIBLE EXAMPLE OF POSSIBLE CONFOUNDING

SOME WAYS TO DEAL WITH CONFOUNDING

CHAPTER 11 How Many People to Study?

SAMPLE SIZE

GETTING THE APPROPRIATE SAMPLE SIZE IF YOUR RESEARCH IS QUANTITATIVE

GETTING THE APPROPRIATE SAMPLE SIZE IF YOUR RESEARCH IS QUALITATIVE

A WORD OF WARNING ON SATURATION

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO NOW – A CHECK LIST

CHAPTER 12 Getting Ready for a Qualitative Analysis

BE PREPARED

CHAPTER 13 Getting Ready for a Quantitative Analysis

GETTING READY

WHICH METHOD OF ANALYSIS?

CHAPTER 14 Writing Your Final Protocol

ANNEX DINESH’S AND ANNA’S RESEARCH PROTOCOLS

CHAPTER 15 Arranging Funding

DECIDING WHAT FUNDING IS REQUIRED

WHERE TO APPLY

CHAPTER 16 Getting Permission to Go Ahead

WILL MY RESEARCH NEED ETHICAL REVIEW?

RESEARCH GOVERNANCE

APPENDIX

PART V Go!

CHAPTER 17 Recruiting the Participants

WORKING WITH THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

DOCUMENTATION

WALKING THOUGH THE RECRUITMENT PROCEDURE

NON-PARTICIPATION

CHAPTER 18 Collecting and Recording the Data

DATA COLLECTION FORMS

CODING OF VARIABLES

MISSING INFORMATION

PRIMARY USE OF COMPUTERS FOR COLLECTING AND CODING

SECURITY

DATA COLLECTION DIRECTLY FROM THE STUDY PARTICIPANT

DEALING WITH THE DATA ONCE COLLECTED

CHAPTER 19 Living With (and Without) the Data

QUANTITATIVE DATA AND THE COMPUTER

REFUSALS TO PARTICIPATE, DROP-OUTS AND OTHER MISSING PERSONS

MISSING A LOT OF DATA

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND MISSING DATA

PART VI Staying the Course

CHAPTER 20 Taking Stock

A PROGRESS REPORT

CHAPTER 21 Making Sense of Your Results – the Quantitative Case

INTRODUCTION

AFTER THE TABLE OF BASIC CHARACTERISTICS – WHAT NEXT?

RE-VISITING THE CONFOUNDING PROBLEM – STRATIFICATION AND MODELLING

CHAPTER 22 Making Sense of Your Results – the Qualitative Case

INTRODUCTION

PART VII The Finishing Line

CHAPTER 23 Writing a Research Paper

THE INTRODUCTION

THE METHOD

THE RESULTS

THE DISCUSSION

AUTHORSHIP – WHICH AUTHORS WILL HAVE THEIR NAMES ON YOUR PAPER?

CHAPTER 24 Setting Out Your Findings

FIGURES

TABLES

TEXT

CHAPTER 25 Writing Your Discussion

CHAPTER 26 Writing a Thesis or Other Report

A THESIS OR DISSERTATION

WRITING A RESEARCH REPORT

CHAPTER 27 Dealing With Journals

Further Reading

Index

This edition first published 2011 © 2011 by David Bowers, Allan House and David Owens

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bowers, David, 1938–

Getting started in health research/David Bowers, Allan House, David Owens.

p.; cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-9148-7 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Medicine-Research. 2. Biology-Research. I. House, Allan. II. Owens, David, Dr. III. Title.

[DNLM: 1. Biomedical Research-methods. W 20.5]

R852.B69 2011

610.72–dc22

2011002193

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is published in the following electronic formats: Wiley Online Library 9781444341300

Preface

This book is aimed mainly at those healthcare professionals who want to do some research but have little or no previous research experience – and don’t really know where or how to start. If you are decided on your particular research idea this book will be of very great help. We describe all the procedures that are necessary to achieve a successful outcome, and we cover both quantitative and qualitative research projects.

Why might you want to do some research?

Because you think it will help your professional (and personal) development;Because you want to know the answer to a question related to your professional practice or experience – curiosity;Because you have been told to or it is expected of you;Because of peer pressure.

Of course there may be other ways to promote your career prospects or to keep up with your peers, doing research is not an easy option and unless you have a strong motivation to do it, it is probably best to find an alternative.

We will take you through the whole research experience, step by step, from the very beginning when that question first pops into your head, ‘I wonder why... ?’, or ‘I wonder if... ?’, to the very end – writing up your idea for publication in a journal, as a paper to be read at a conference, or for submission as part of a thesis or dissertation. The book will provide you with a map of your research journey, telling you what you should be doing at each stage of the process, so that you don’t overlook something crucial until it’s too late.

As you will see, we have illustrated the various stages of the research process with a blow-by-blow account of the questions, tasks, and potential difficulties of two (fictitious) new researchers, Dinesh (a nurse) and Anna (a general practitioner), who are embarking on their first piece of research. The decisions that they have to make as they progress through their research projects are the same as the decisions you will have to make.

In a book of this size we obviously can’t go into a huge amount of detail (particularly about methods of analysis, for example), but we aim to tell you what it is you need to know and do, and when you need to know and do it. We also suggest how to set about getting the help you need from a supervisor, a librarian, a statistician, other clinicians, colleagues, and so on.

We have aimed the book at the health research novice who may be working in any one of the many disciplines in health care, for example as a doctor, nurse, physiotherapist, health visitor, dietitian, occupational therapist, health promoter or health educator, to name a few.

We hope the book will also be of use to those who are acting as research supervisors for the first time (or who have a limited amount of supervision experience) – this book will provide you with a helpful framework of how a successful research project should be carried out.

The three authors have between them many years of experience of carrying out, teaching about, and supervising health research in a medical school attached to a major teaching hospital, and have themselves published a great many research papers.

David Bowers

Allan House

David Owens

University of Leeds, Institute of Health Sciences, 2011

PART I

Limbering Up

CHAPTER 1

Turning Your General Aim Into a Specific Question

THE BEGINNING

Most people have a pretty good idea of the general area in which they want to research. A useful starting point is to ask yourself, ‘What interests me about my own area and why?’ You should keep this thought in mind as you plan your research – otherwise there is a real risk of getting drawn into doing something because it is feasible, or because somebody else wants you to, rather than because it answers your own questions.