Includes bibliographical references and index.

Evaluating health services: multidisciplinary collaboration -- Social research on health: sociological and psychological concepts and approaches -- Quality of life: concepts, measurements and patient perception -- Health needs and their assessment: demography and epidemiology -- Costing health services: health economics -- The philosophical framework of measurement -- The principles of research -- Sample size and sampling for quantitative and qualitative research -- Quantitative research: surveys -- Quantitative research: experiments and other analytic methods of investigation -- Sample selection and group assignment methods in experiments and other analytic methods -- Data collection methods in quantitative research: questionnaires, interviews and their response rates -- Questionnaire design -- Techniques of survey interviewing -- Preparation of quantitative data for coding and analysis -- Unstructured and structured observational studies -- Unstructured interviewing -- Focus groups -- Mixed research approaches.