Making Sense of Research in Nursing, Health and Social Care

Pam Moule is Professor Emerita at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Pam is engaged in a number of research and evaluation projects across a range of health care environments, supported by a variety of funders. Pam delivers research methods education, supervises undergraduate and masters level dissertations, and supports Doctoral students in the fields of leadership, learning and workforce. Pam has a number of publications in a range of nursing and medical journals and has published four textbooks. Pam is on the editorial board of Nurse Education Today and reviews papers for a number of nursing and health care journals.

Some books reach their silver anniversary and start to look dated and lose their relevancy. Making Sense of Research in Nursing, Health and Social Care however, has renewed and refreshed at each edition and maintains its applicability for today’s health and social care professionals.  One of the marks of a good textbook is its ability to appeal to readers across professional boundaries and with varying levels of experience in the topic at hand; Moule achieves this both engaging those new to research as well as providing different insights for those with more research knowledge and experience.One of the stated intentions of the book is to make research interesting and in so doing to help practitioners in their adoption of research and evidenced based practice within their work. Moule achieves this with the use of an accessible writing style which is at once both engaging and thought provoking. I would recommend this book as a must have on the shelf for any student of health and social care be they a first year undergraduate or a more experienced individual engaging in post graduate studies.

• The role of research in the health and social care professionsThe nature of knowledge in health and social careOverview of the research processEthical issuesSearching and reviewing the literatureResearch problems, aims, questions and hypothesesApproaches to and design of research in health and social careSamplingUnderstanding data collection techniquesMaking sense of data analysisCritical appraisal of health and social care researchDisseminating and implementing research