Introduction to research in the health sciences (5th edition)

  • S. Polgar &
  • S. A. Thomas
UK: Elsevier price £28.99; pp 344 ISBN 9780443074295 | ISBN: 978-0-4430-7429-5

This is the fifth edition of this textbook, which was first published in 1988. It is written by Stephen Polgar, a Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Health, La Trobe University in Melbourne, and Shane A. Thomas, Director of Primary Care Research, Faculty of Medicine, Monash University, Australia.

The book aims to provide readers with 'a succinct, yet comprehensive overview of health research as an integrated, problem-solving process'. The fifth edition offers a few updates from the fourth, including two new chapters on qualitative methods and systematic reviews. The layout takes the reader logically through the stages of research: planning, design, data collection and statistics, directed by a clear contents, index and glossary. Each chapter is neatly composed with a summary, discussion, and self assessment questions at the end, to facilitate learning. Answers to these questions are provided at the end of the book.

Early chapter focus is purely on scientific method, research design, planning and data collection, with later chapters dealing with interpretation of data (descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and dissemination and critical evaluation of research). The end of the book contains a glossary, along with further questions and answers, in a self-assessment format. Although this topic can normally be quite dry, the book uses colour and presents many examples (for example, studies on the progression of AIDS), tables and graphs, which help to enrich the text. These, along with a well organised breakdown of subheadings, provide an easy read. This book may not be of great interest to the general dental practitioner who is not involved with research, but will certainly be of use to undergraduates studying their statistics module, and hospital staff involved in research.

In summary this book is well written and concise. The text can be difficult to digest in places but this reflects more the subject matter than the manner of writing. One criticism would be the limited referral to referencing within the text. On the whole, I feel the authors have managed to make a dry subject rather interesting. I would recommend this book to dental students or to postgraduate practitioners wishing to become involved in research.