HEALTH RESEARCH

Question 1

Evidence- based medicine: RESEARCH

Answer 1

implies knowledge based on scientific principles and methods in contrast to information obtain from personal, intuition or from anecdotal, tradition, or common sense sources.

Question 2

Descriptive Research:

Answer 2

describing the problem.

Question 3

Analytical Research:

Answer 3

identifying the causes and consequences of the problem (cause and effect)

Question 4

Evaluation Research:

Answer 4

when health practitioners address health problems, they try to answer these questions based on evidence.

Question 5

Quantitative:

Answer 5

looks at the numbers: how many? How often? How much?
• To quantify data and generalize results from a sample to the population of interest
• To measure the incidence of various views and opinions in a chosen sample
• Sometimes followed by qualitative research which is used to explore some findings further

seeking findings that can be generalised and applied to larger populations than the one studied is a feature of quantitative research designs.

you would usually draw a QUANTITATIVE research design to test a hypothesis

Question 6

Qualitative:

Answer 6

looks at concepts & words…Why?…helps us to understand processes & mechanisms
• To gain an understanding of underlying reasons and motivations
• To provide insights into the setting of a problem, generating ideas and/or hypotheses for later quantitative research
• To uncover prevalent trends in thought and opinion

Features of qualitative research designs:
• Theory emergent
• Contextual understanding
• Understanding processes

Question 7

Triangulation:

Answer 7

is usually a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Question 8

The Cochrane Collaboration:

Answer 8

develops and disseminates systematic reviews of health interventions.( including public health interventions)

Question 9

SOURCES OF HEALTH INFO AND DATA

Answer 9

• Primary research Disease registries & surveillance systems
• AdministraJve systems e.g. hospital records (i.e. DMR)
• Office of Birth, Deaths & Marriages (BDM)
• Health surveys Government Census Data

Question 10

Measuring population health:

Answer 10

define the population then collect data..
¬ Registries, admin systems, etc. (pre-existing and routinely conducted); or: ¬ Take a smaller sample of the population you are investigating making sure the sample size is large enough to be statistically relevant

• Prevalence – number of existing cases
• Incidence – number of new cases
• Burden of Disease: (BoD) eg. motor accidents ¬ Years of life lost (YLL) ¬ Years of Life lost to disability (YLLD) ¬ Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)

• Life expectancy:
* Mortality rates: ¬ IMR & MMR
• Self-rated: health status eg. SF-36 & AQoL

Question 11

Health literacy:

Answer 11

is the ability of individuals to gain access to, understand and use information in ways which improves their health.