Specific types of project - A FEW HINTS!
The requirements for the aims, discussion and conclusion sections of all types
of project are similar. Follow the guidance on the
"How do you prepare your project?" page.
Questionnaire study
Questionnaires are useful when you need to find out information from
more people than you can easily interview. They can yield information about
people's opinions, attitudes, and knowledge. There are several published guides
to carrying out questionnaires. You may want to use a questionnaire that has
already been validated, e.g. patient satisfaction or lifestyle questionnaires.
If you are designing your own questionnaire, take care to keep it clear,
simple, and short. It is also wise to pilot the questionnaire. Please attach a
copy of your questionnaire as an appendix to your project.
Literature
Include references on your subject matter, and any that have helped you to
develop your questionnaire and to increase your response rate. As an
introduction, explain why you are interested in this area of work. The title of
the project should be closely related to the aim. Examples of titles of
questionnaire studies are:
Method
Say how you developed your questionnaire, or identified an existing one to use.
Describe how you chose your population, how you chose your sample size, and how
the questionnaire was administered. Consider deadlines for replies, and the use
of reminders to non-responders. Describe your method of piloting if you did
this. How did you analyse the results? NB If your questionnaire involves
approaching patients who are selected on the basis of confidential information,
such as a diagnosis, then you will need to get
regulatory approval.
Results/findings
Response rates should be clearly stated. The results you get from your
questionnaire will depend on the types of questions you ask. Answers to closed
questions may be presented as tables or graphs, answers to open questions may
need to be reported differently.
Notes review
This type of project enables you to study an aspect of care of a
particular group of patients by examining all or a selection of their medical
records.
Literature
What existing literature is there on this subject, either general evidence on
diagnosis or management, or specifically on primary care of the condition?
Method
A notes review should be an exploratory study, which looks into case notes in
some detail, rather than comparing practice with pre-determined criteria as in
an audit. Projects which use no more than a criterion audit methodology are not
acceptable as notes reviews. Describe how you chose which notes to review and
what you are examining. The method must link closely to your aim. Computerised
records have made notes reviews easier to undertake. However, make sure that
the information has been transferred in a standard way from the manual records.
Manual records may have to be included.
Results/findings
A notes review lends itself to the use of charts and tables for clearly
presenting findings. However, do not use lots of charts when a simple statement
would do.
Literature review
The purpose of a literature review is to find and evaluate existing research
evidence on a topic. It can be described as 'secondary research', and as such
should set out to answer a clear question. Your objective is not to list as
many articles as possible but to demonstrate your ability to recognise relevant
information, and to evaluate it according to the question you have posed in
your aim. Why not have a look at a literature review published in the British
Journal of General Practice? However, your project should be kept as simple as
possible and looking at a published review is just to give you an idea about
approach.
References
You can include references chosen for your review and also those that have
helped you with your method e.g. a paper on how to do a literature review or on
critical appraisal of the literature. The references that you get from your
literature search are really part of the results for this type of project. You
should also provide references in the aims section when you describe the
background to your project.
Method
Which databases did you search? e.g. Medline, Embase, Cochrane. What keywords
did you use? How did you select the papers to read? How did you judge a paper
to be worth including? What criteria did you use to evaluate the papers?
Results/Findings
Describe the range of literature you identified, and critically appraise the
most relevant and important papers. These papers may themselves be reviews or
meta-analyses. You need to provide more than just a descriptive list of
articles and books. One important aspect of the results is how many papers, and
of what type, your search yielded. How many of these were selected for analysis
and inclusion in the write up of the project?
Clinical case study (includes significant event review)
You might choose to study a particular case or a series of cases.
A significant event may form the basis of a case study. You may wish to focus
on clinical aspects, management problems or other non-clinical aspects.
Literature
You may quote other case reports, as well as literature about the patient's
condition. You may want to refer to literature on qualitative methods or
significant event analysis. . References that helped you develop your aim are
always interesting.
Method
There are various ways you could gather information about a case or series of
cases: from the case notes, interviewing patients, interviewing primary health
care workers, hospital letters etc. Your method section should describe how you
did this, e.g. tape recording of interviews, keeping 'field' notes. If you use
transcriptions of interviews, say how you analysed them to extract relevant
themes. You may find that references on qualitative or narrative methods are
useful here. NB If you interview, or administer a questionnaire, to patients
who are selected on the basis of confidential information, such as a diagnosis,
then you will need to get
regulatory approval for the project.
Results/findings
This section will consist of your narrative about the case(s). Your statements,
e.g. about the patient's experiences, may be supported with quotes from
interviews or from documentary evidence. In this sort of work it is often
difficult to separate presentation of results from discussion of them.
Research Project
Research is an organised and systematic way of finding answers to questions.
There are different types of research, and there is likely to be overlap
between this category of project and others e.g. questionnaire studies, notes
reviews. There are some excellent guides to primary care research available. It
is important to keep your project well-contained so that it is realistic to
complete during your training.
Literature
Refer to papers that resulted in you formulating an aim. You could also refer
to papers that contributed to the development of your method.
Method
This should be closely related to the aim. Describe what you have done in a way
that would enable the reader to repeat your work.
NB If you are doing a research project it is very likely that you will need to
get regulatory
approval for the project.
Results/findings
Try to present results neatly and use graphs and charts only if this clarifies.
Organise your results in a way that makes it clear that you have answered your
research question or more generally achieved your aims.
Plan for a new service
Establishing a new clinic either in the practice itself or in the locality (a
satellite clinic) are examples. Creating a practice web site is another.
Literature
You may want to refer to papers on managing change as well as those related to
the service being created. What evidence is there in the literature that such a
service will improve patient care?
Method
How did you establish the need for this service? How did you go about planning
and implementing this change? What method do you recommend for evaluating the
service?
NB you may wish to seek patient's views on a new service, either in planning or
evaluation. If you interview, or administer a questionnaire, to patients who
are selected on the basis of confidential information, such as a diagnosis,
then you will need to get
regulatory approval for the project.
Results/findings
This section can include a description of the service and any evaluation if you
have reached that stage. There could be a presentation of the evidence for the
service here.
Discussion Paper
A discussion paper gives you the opportunity to collect evidence from sources
other than peer-reviewed literature. You must not just state your own
prejudices but develop a logical argument.
Literature
Peer reviewed literature can be used as well as other sources. When referencing
web sites, add a date when last accessed.
Method
You should describe how you gathered your information and this can be from the
media, communicating personally with someone or by email with experts,
web-sites, describing what happens in your practice as well as searching the
literature. With a discussion paper, you have the opportunity to be creative
with your method.
NB If you seek the opinions of experts or colleagues you should consider the
ethical and good practice aspects of this enquiry.
Results/findings
This section should be a logical presentation of your findings. You may wish to
attach letters or other 'grey' material as appendices.
References
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"Research methods in Primary Care" - Yvonne Carter and Catherine Thomas,
Radcliffe Medical Press 1996
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"Evidence based medicine - How to practice and teach EBM" - Sackett D,
Richardson WF, Rosenberg W, Haynes B. Churchill Livingstone 1997
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"Research methods and audit in general practice" - David Armstrong and John
Grace, Oxford University Press, General Practice Series 1994
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"Critical reading for primary care" - Roger Jones and Ann-Louise Kinmouth,
Oxford General Practice Series 1995
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Master Classes in Primary Care Research No 2, RCGP 2000. Eds Yvonne Carter,
Sara Shaw, Cathryn Thomas.
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Health Informatics Toolkit -
Literature Searching
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