Beginners’ Guide to Health Research

Health professionals, busy in clinical or related activities, may feel it hard to make time for doing research. This does not mean that they do not need to do research. Research, in fact, can help them to understand the outcome of their treatment given to different patients. If the doctor aggregates treatment related information for all patients, s/he will possibly be surprised to see that certain procedures gave better results than others. Ordinarily, we try to generalize a situation with certain impressions in mind and take actions on such assumptions. The impressions are created by certain extra-ordinary events that keep lasting memory in the mind. Other events, although important, may go silently without creating any mind effect. Therefore, generalizations from assumptions, as they are not scientific way, may often end in misleading conclusions. Research helps to draw evidence-based conclusions, and is thus especially important in health care, where human life is at the center point of all concerns.

What is the purpose of this book?

• To enable you understand research
• To improve your skills for designing and conducting research
• To improve your skills on how to read and critically evaluate published research
• To enable you to do even better in your profession by doing research

The beginners of research and the postgraduate medical students involved in thesis or dissertation work may use this book as a good guide.