Main description:

Palliative and end of life care are concerned with the physical, social, psychological and spiritual care of people with advanced disease. It currently has a poorly developed research base, but the need to improve this is increasingly recognised. One of the reasons for the lack of research - and the variable quality of the research that is undertaken - is the difficulty of conducting research with very ill and bereaved people. Standard and well-established
research methods may need to be adapted to work in this context. This means that existing research methods textbooks may be of limited use to palliative care practitioners seeking to do research for the first time, or to more experienced researchers wanting to apply their knowledge in palliative care
settings.

This research methods textbook is the first to be written specifically for palliative care. It has been edited by four experienced palliative care academics with acknowledged expertise and international reputations in this field. It encompasses methods used in both clinical and health services research in palliative care, with sections on clinical, epidemiological, survey and qualitative research, as well as a section covering skills needed in any research project. Each chapter provides
readers with an up to date overview of the research method in question, an understanding of its applicability to palliative care and of the particular challenges of using it in this setting. It is essential reading for all palliative care researchers.

Contents:

1. Introduction ; SECTION 1 - CLINICAL TRIALS ; 2. Principles of designing clinical trials in palliative care ; 3. Ethical and practical issues in designing and conducting clinical trials in palliative care ; SECTION 2 - SURVEY RESEARCH ; 4. Survey design ; 5. Survey research: methods of data collection, questionnaire design, and piloting ; SECTION 3 - EPIDEMIOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODS ; 6. Experimental and quasi-experimental designs ; 7. Outcome measurement ; 8. Systematic reviews ; SECTION 4 - QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS ; 9. Qualitative methods of data collection and analysis ; 10. Ethical and practice issues in qualitative research ; 11. Evaluating qualitative research ; 12. Mixed methods for evaluation research ; 13. Ethnography ; 14. Documentary analysis and policy ; SECTION 5 - HOW TO... ; 15. How to develop a research question ; 16. Writing a research proposal ; 17. How to gain research ethics approval ; 18. How to use a statistician ; 19. How to write a paper