title: Interdisciplinary health research: perspectives from a process evaluation research team.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Interdisciplinary health research (IDHR) is increasingly encouraged and is often a specific requirement for research grants provided by health research funding councils worldwide. There is consensus that research expertise and scholarship from a diverse range of disciplines  are necessary to examine questions relating to complex health and social concerns for which single disciplinary approaches have been found inadequate.
  
  
  METHODS
  This paper reports on the experiences of an interdisciplinary process evaluation research team working in the field of stroke  care.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Realising the perceived benefits is less than straightforward; setting up and conducting IDHR can present researchers with a range of challenges at a strategic, practical and individual level. We identify how differences in disciplinary perspectives and skills impacted  on our research practice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Whilst initially challenging, our different approaches to the research problem and the methods to address it, expanded conceptual and methodological understanding and proved of benefit for the research team and the study outputs.
authors: University of Leeds, UK. d.j.clarke@leeds.ac.uk
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Clarke
authors: Rebecca
authors: R
authors: Hawkins
authors: Euan
authors: E
authors: Sadler
authors: Geoffrey
authors: G
authors: Harding
authors: Anne
authors: A
authors: Forster
authors: Christopher
authors: C
authors: McKevitt
authors: Mary
authors: M
authors: Godfrey
authors: Josie
authors: J
authors: Monaghan
authors: Amanda
authors: A
authors: Farrin
mesh_terms: D017028:Caregivers / Q000193:education; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D016730:Program Development / Q000379:methods*; D020521:Stroke / Q000628:therapy