Qualitative research methods are growing in importance and in use amongst nurses and other health researchers. Qualitative Health Research showcases the cutting-edge developments and seminal studies in research practice and research theory in this field. At the same time these volumes detail the long and fascinating history of the use of qualitative approaches to the study of health and illness, providing a complete map of the field. The four volumes focus on 'Patients and Disease', 'Health Professionals and their Work', 'Healthcare Organisations' and 'Patient Experiences'.

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A social science which has become so remote from the society which pays for its upkeep is ultimately doomed, threatened less by repression than by intellectual contempt and financial neglect. This is the message of the authors of this book in this reassessment of the evolution and present state of British sociology.

Their investigation analyses the discipline as a social institution, whose product is inexorably shaped by the everyday circumstances of its producers; it is the concrete outcome of people's work, rather than a body of abstract ideas. Drawing upon their varied experience...