Research into Practice

The need for all health care professionals to develop research appreciation skills has been recognized and emphasized. Otherwise, research remains irrelevant and unrelated to practice. Traditional research textbooks have used the format of the research process which makes research seem even more difficult and remote. This book is different. Because the purpose of research appreciation is to enable practitioners to use research to develop and improve practice, it focuses instead on the skills of research appreciation and application which are distinct from the skills necessary to undertake research. It prepares you to access, critically evaluate, understand and use research-based literature within the multi-disciplinary context of today's health services, and emphasises:

The range of sources of knowledge which inform nursing practice

Contemporary research and the context in which health care research and development takes place

Critical evaluation of research reports and research-based literature, examining the implication of project design and conduct

The range of skills needed for the application of research findings and innovation within practice

Attractively designed to encourage reflection on practice

Text highlights the relevance of research appreciation and application to practice

The context for health and social care practice is continually developing and new material has been included within certain chapters in order to reflect this. Consistent with world-wide developments in health care and to set the scene for subsequent chapters, Chapter 1 has been revised to give more attention to the relationship between lay and professional knowledge. Chapter 2 which describes the context for nursing and health care research has been rewritten, with greater emphasis on the relationship between research and social policy. Computerised resources and techniques for systematic literature searching have developed apace and receive more detailed consideration within this edition. Increased emphasis is also placed on the contribution of research design to decisions about the appropriate interpretation and application of research findings. As a consequence the chapter providing an overview of research design (Chapter 6) has been rewritten and chapters on research methods (Chapters 7 and 8) have been extensively restructured. New chapters on information retrieval (Chapter 4) and the conduct and critique of systematic reviews (Chapter 12) have been added. Finally, all references and examples have been updated.