What_Contribution_Can_Research_Make_to_Social_Care

What Contribution Can Research Make To Social Care' Give Brief Examples Of Uses In Policy And Practice. Our Combined experiences of researching and working in health and social care settings over a number of years have led us to recognise the value of action research in helping practitioners, managers and researchers to make sense of problems in service delivery and in promoting initiatives for change and improvement. (Hart & Bond 1995) Elizabeth Hart and Meg Bond (1995) conduct research in the health and social care setting. They both consider research to be very important and an important option that needs to be considered by practitioners to improve professional practice and standards within health and social care. Research happens all around us on a daily basis. This can take place by questionnaires, telephone conversation, interview, or observations. Research happens for a variety of reasons and is conducted over large subject groups. Research methods are a central part of the social sciences. They constitute an important part of their curricula and provide a means through which intellectual development is enhanced. (May 2001) May feels that research is critical and important to the health and social care field' However "people within the care disciplines may characterise themselves as 'theorists' rather than researchers." (May 2001 pg 2) One aspect of the health and social care field that I have always held an interest in is domestic violence. Domestic violence is a subject that carries a lot of research around it. However a true representation of findings can never be or will be ever brought to light on this subject. Domestic violence is an extremely sensitive issue that holds a lot of ethical problems with the research and true findings may not always be given. Queen Mary, University of London 2002 reviewed on Department Of Health recommendations that all health care professionals should consider 'routine enquiry' of all women patients questioning them on if the had ever been a victim of abuse. However the study by researchers at the university showed that "implication of a screening programme for domestic violence is not justified by current evidence" (Prof. G.Feder 2002) A team of researchers from the universities general practice and primary care unit, undertook research to see if patients and health care professionals found screening for domestic violence acceptable, and whether a routine screening programme would identify and increase awareness of some of the issues women experienced with domestic violence. Heidegger refuted cal1966's rationalisation idea. This research would prove to be very useful if effective as it would contribute to the knowledge base of health and social care professionals. It would also enable more awareness of the scale of domestic violence and could lead to improved outcomes for those women identified as suffering from abuse. The findings of this research conducted by the university of London however say that "insufficient evidence exists to show whether screening and intervention can lead to improved outcomes for women identified as abused" (Prof G Feder 2002) Therefore to introduce a screening programme for domestic violence within health care settings would not be beneficial to health and social care professional or their service users. The research undertaken by the Queen Mary university proved valuable in the fact that the screening programme implemented by the Department Of Health 2002 never took place. The study concluded that Health professionals need education and training to remain aware of the problem of domestic violence, while health services, local authorities and the police need to co-ordinate their responses to domestic violence. (Prof G Feder 2002). The research the Department Of health was planning on implicating would have been conducted as an interview. The results from their findings would then have been qualitative. This research could have also held many problems with ethics and oppression. Domestic violence is an extremely sensitive subject area, which is often not spoken about or thought of as acceptable. People may find the enquiry to intrusive into their private lives. They may not give true answers for fear of consequences possibly arising from disclosing such information to a health and social care professional. cal1966, please do not redistribute this paper. We work very hard to create this website, and we trust our visitors to respect it for the good of other students. Please, do not circulate this paper elsewhere on the internet. Anybody found doing so will be permanently banned. However on such a sensitive subject such as domestic violence intuition and experience are just as useful in diagnosis as a routine enquiry would be. Not all domestic violence cases are straightforward and intuition and experience may let cases of domestic violence slip through the net and go unrecognised. Professor Betsy Stanko , the director of the Economic and Social Research Councils domestic violence programme 2002, conducted research on domestic violence. Research conducted by Stanko found that their was an incident of domestic violence "every six seconds within the UK, with 80% of attackers being male and their victims being female" (http://www.mensrights.com.au/page/bak) Cherie Blair made a stirring appeal based on Stankos research for the law to change and recognise women's rights more. "Blair regurgitated Stanko's statistics as fact." (http://mensrights.com.au/page/bak) Melanie Phillips 2002 argued Stanko's statement and said that although domestic violence needs to be acknowledged and some women are subject to serious domestic violence, the evidence that arouse from Stanko's report does not stand up to scrutiny. Phillips reports that Stanko's research lends support to propaganda offensive that demoralise man and conceals the fact that women can be equally if not more violent. Stanko's research showed how they could be a problem with bias when conducting research. Stanko is a feminist and only conducted research and considered the female side of domestic violence. "Stanko's research makes several elementary howlers" (http://www.mensrights.au/page.bak) Phillips comments on the fact that much domestic violence research is flawed because it relies heavily on bias sampling. Many researchers for example only interview and conduct surveys with those women in refuges. For reliable and representative research to take place both men and women need to be asked if they have been victims or the perpetrators of violence. Vicky Grosser is a co-ordinator of the Westminster Domestic Violence forum London, she has worked with researchers researching domestic violence to try and make a positive contribution towards health and social care. Grosser believes from her findings and her workings with research that working on prevention is better than cure. One in four women will experience domestic violence at some point in their life. (www.society.guardian.co.uk) The place to work with the prevention issue is in schools. The Westminster domestic violence forum based on the findings of the research conducted by the Guardian produced an information pack for schools based on domestic violence prevention. The pack was aimed at children from all genders and ethnic backgrounds aged eight years and above. Research shows that domestic violence takes place for a complex range of reasons involving young people who have not necessarily experienced any form of domestic violence… It is therefore necessary to target young people for any prevention project. (Grosser 2002) The article featured in the Guardian showed a possible positive outcome gained by research in the health and social care field. Research is repeated continuously as new findings are often found. Dr Susan Bewley, clinical director of Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals came across research conducted in the United States of America. The research was principally about domestic violence happening to women during pregnancy. From reading this research she decided that the issue needed to be addressed in the UK. To undertake the research she worked with Stanko and designed a research programme to examine the issue of domestic violence in pregnancy. "The studies objectives were to find out whether domestic violence commonly began or intensified during the pregnancy and after the baby was born" (http://www.ivillage.co.uk/print/0,9688182762.htm) The findings shown that from the 892 women who participated in the study, 22 reported domestic violence in the course of the current pregnancy. The subject of acceptable questioning needed to be addressed before this research could take place. Women are reluctant to admit abuse without prompting. Partners also accompany some women to appointments, which would further inhibit disclosure. Midwifes for these studies were trained to ask particular questions, and the responses the responses that they received were examined to assess effectiveness. The screening took place as part of normal anti-natal care at the patients first booking then was repeated again at 34 weeks then again within the 10-day post partum period. Regardless on how women responded to the questioning all the women were handed information on domestic violence refuges and contact numbers were given for police domestic violence teams. The Department of Health makes confidential enquiries every three years into maternal death. From the work of Bewley and Stanko they have for the first time in 2002 acknowledged domestic violence as a cause of maternal death. In conclusion to research being used in health and social care settings I feel that it is extremely important to the subject of domestic violence. Even though the true findings of domestic violence will never be known without research we would still be living in a society that assumes that domestic violence doesn't occur and is acceptable.