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Book ReviewOriginally published in The British Journal of Healthcare Computing & Information Management. |
Ann Bowling (1997). Research Methods in Health: Investigating Health and Health Services. Open University Press: Buckingham.
Books on research methods abound in all academic areas, many of them covering the same material. What marks this one out is its attention to background context, with the first section providing an overview of different types of research and their applications within the health setting. Anyone looking for pertinent topics on either health or its provision would find many ideas, with pointers to appropriate starting points.
Subsequent sections cover underpinning philosophies of research, followed by quantitative methods, qualitative methods, and combined approaches. All are authoritative, compact, and well written, using plenty of apposite examples. The author's experience is displayed through her willingness to express opinions about particular methods and by eminently sensible tips (e.g. sign letters in blue ink to avoid confusion with impersonal photocopies).
However, a total beginner might struggle a little because the information can be densely packed. This is partly a chicken-and-egg problem, in that the complete picture is given before the detail, but the detail is needed to view the picture. Sometimes, the detail itself is missing: for example, the original research spawning the Hawthorne reactive effect is never described, despite an allusion to the Great Depression as a potentially confounding effect. On the other hand, one of the book's major strengths is that it supplies comprehensive references, giving every opportunity to supplement material from appropriate sources. It can be recommended to researchers both inside and outside the health field...but it would help if they had some prior knowledge upon which the book can build.