At a time when evidence-based practice is the standard bearer for understanding health behaviour, problems and interventions, ensuring that researchers know the appropriate designs and methods for their research is more paramount than ever. Health Intervention Research will equip those doing research in these communities with the knowledge and tools they need to inform their methodological decisions when planning and conducting studies. This book describes both commonly used (e.g., randomized clinical trials) and advanced (e.g. preference trials, pragmatic trials) designs and methods for health intervention research. It outlines the theoretical reasoning underlying these different approaches, and synthesizes the evidence which supports or disputes different designs and methods. To achieve its aims, the book is divided into three main sections. The first section points to the need to base methodological decisions on evidence and highlights the importance of carefully selecting research designs and methods to maintain validity. The second section focuses on designs to determine the effects of intervention on outcomes, outlining their features and discussing how these can be used to evaluate interventions. The last section covers methods used in conducting intervention evaluation research. For each design and method, the following is covered: what it is, what the logic underlying it is, what the evidence supporting its effectiveness is, and also includes its advantages, its limitations, and how can it be implemented. This will be key reading for postgraduates and novice researchers in health and clinical psychology, health sciences and nursing.

Advances in Intervention Evaluation Designs: Extensions of Experimental Designs

Advances in Intervention Evaluation Designs: Extensions of Experimental Designs

There are situations where it is not feasible to implement the experimental or randomized controlled trial (RCT) design because randomization may not be practical, acceptable, or desirable. Several designs have been proposed to evaluate interventions in these situations, to overcome the limitations of the RCT. It is beyond the scope of this book to discuss specific designs (for details, refer to Shadish et al., 2002). In this chapter, two general categories of advanced designs are introduced. The first category represents extensions of the RCT and the second involves quasi-experimental designs in which naturally occurring cohorts are compared. The rationale for considering them in intervention evaluation research and available empirical evidence of their utility are presented.

Situations Unsuitable For Randomization

Randomization of ...

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