Getting Started in Clinical Pharmacy Research

Abstract

As a profound increase of health care expenditure and demand of chronic diseases management in the United States, the purpose of this review is to provide clinicians fundamental theory of how to conduct a scientific research in the health settings. Given different patients with a variety of disease status in the real world, randomized control trial (RCT) may not satisfy all the research questions. Therefore, evidence based outcomes research has been widely used for treatment guidance, reimbursement purposes and marketing strategy. An increasing use of evidence-based outcomes research raises awareness of the potential for choosing an appropriate research method in their clinical settings. This article summarizes the existing research methods and identifies the implications for practice in real world settings. After learning the pros and cons of each study design and the method of data collection in evidence based research, the clinicians are able to choose an appropriate method for their outcome measurement purposes. This article leads the clinicians step by step from propose a research question to conduct an observational study, and finally to disseminate the findings and publications. Therefore, effectively translate a normal question into a measurable research question may lead them to successfully conduct a scientific research. After learning the pros and cons of each study design and the method of data collection, the clinicians are able to choose an appropriate method for their outcome measurement purposes.