Randomised allocation of patients to treatment and control groups can also lead to questionable ethical circumstances. This type of research sets out to discover the effect of an event, intervention or organisational change on health service, its staff or patients. A study of the impact of relocation of psychiatric services from a hospital to community based provision. Studies will often utilise 'before and after 'evaluative techniques. Intervention-Impact Evaluation studies are particularly useful for reviewing and informing policy, identifying training needs or evaluating reorganisation of services.
Studies can form part of a quality assurance framework.
Intervention-Impact evaluation studies are likely to be quick, relatively cheap and be a useful addition to more focused studies of patient care. Difficulties arise in controlling variables and matching patient characteristics. This limits the reliability of research findings. Selecting An Approach To Evaluation. There are a wide range of approaches to research available to social scientists and health care researchers.