KARACHI: Fatima Jinnah Dental College (FJDC) recently held a workshop for its faculty and students on the hierarchy of research acknowledging the crucial role it plays in advancing knowledge by opening new avenues of exploration.
On the first day of the workshop, Dr Inayat Ullah Padhiyar, Technical Advisor, FJDC and chief editor of the Journal of Pakistan Dental Associations, talked about the significance of medical writing in research. He also spoke about the process of creating written content that can effectively cmmunicate scientific and clinical information in a clear and concise language.
He said medical writing involves the development of various types of documents, including articles, review papers and case reports.
It is important to ensure that the information presented is accurate and backed by readily available evidence, he added.
Dr Hussain Askary, CEO and Head of Community Dentistry at FJDC enlightened the attendees about the role of review and critical analysis in research, saying they aim to summarise the current state of available knowledge on a particular subject, identify areas that require further investigation, and offer recommendations for future research.
On the second day, Dr Zubia Waqar, Assistant Professor of Community Dentistry at FJDC, discussed the definition and concept of epidemiology in research, saying it focuses on the study of patterns, causes, and effects of health-related events and conditions within populations. It aims to understand the distribution and determinants of diseases, injuries, and other health outcomes to suggestpublic health interventions and improve population health.
She also elaborated different types of research the type of data needed to be collected for each one.
Dr Hassan Mehdi, Head of Oral Surgery department at FJDC, gave tips on how to conduct an effective literature search after selecting a topic. Literature search is conducted by thoroughly reviewing all available evidence on the research topic, using online databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus etc.
He said it is aimed at identifying any gaps and determining whether there is something of value that paper can add to the literature. He also gave a demo on using search engines by giving it certain commands for getting precise results.
On the last day of the workshop, Dr Hussain Askary spoke on the importance of surveys, saying these are an essential component of research. One of the primary goals of surveys is to allow researchers to gather information from large groups of subjects in a systematic and standardised manner, enabling them to identify patterns, quantify results and draw conclusions.
He said surveys can be useful in exploratory and descriptive forms of research projects where they explore relationships between variables and provide an overview of current behaviors and attitudes.
Dr Hassan Mehdi explained various data set types and how they can be compiled using SPSS. He gave a step-by-step explanation of data entry and types of analysis.
The attendees were asked to follow Dr Hassan’s instructions in a stepwise manner by putting data and doing analysis on their laptops to encourage practical learning.