No abstract

There is growing recognition that current methodology to understand complex interventions in health-care often falls short of comprehensively explaining the interventions. Health-care interventions need to be understood in ways that are responsive to the complexities and intricacies of programs, people, and places. Qualitative research and mixed-methods endeavors attempt to overcome the limits of measurement-based research. This article draws on published theories of complex interventions and argues that research guided by Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics can yield research to complement our understanding of complex interventions in health-care. Specific examples from family intervention research are provided to illustrate the type of knowledge that can be generated with hermeneutic inquiry to understand complex interventions.

Future HF disease management programmes should seek to harness the main mechanisms through which programmes actually work to improve HF self-care and outcomes, rather than simply replicating components from other programmes. The most promising mechanisms to harness are associated with increased patient understanding and self-efficacy, involvement of other caregivers and health professionals and improving psychosocial well-being and technology use.

No abstract

Football and healthcare are both complex adaptive systems. Alex Clark and colleagues wonder how and why football scores more highly when it comes to introducing interventions