intimate and loving relationships has for

too long been ignored. This book allows

the reader to explore the issues raised by

such relationships, helping workers

afford these relationships due respect

whilst acknowledging the complexity

therein.

A multidisciplinary body of practitio-

ners, authoritive chie¯y in the forensic

®eld, have written in short informative

chapters. There is thorough coverage of

practice, legal, ethical and managerial

issues. A range of relationships and

settings are considered. It is a novel area

of investigation, which, as the authors

point out, is largely missing in the contem-

porary literature. The area is one ripe for

research across the disciplines and the

further I read the more I was impressed by

the relevance of the text to most mental

health practitioners. There is a chapter

giving an international perspective and the

subject matter is of course, universal.

There is no chapter written by psychiatric

service users. Thus, the voice of personal

experience is not explicit and this is for me

a drawback.

Such is the novelty of the subject

matter I can recommended this book to

all mental health practitioners at student

level and above. Lawyers and service

planners in the mental health ®eld will

also ®nd it a useful reference. It is a text

perhaps especially to be recommended to

nurses given their management role in

residential settings and a place for it

should be found on the shelves of all

mental health libraries. The appendix is

useful and illuminating.

Paul Veitch

MSc RMN

Senior Nurse

Newcastle City Health Trust

Newcastle upon Tyne

England

Care Matters, Concepts, Practices and

Research in Health and Social Care edited

by Ann Brechin, Jan Walmsley, Jeanne

Katz and Sheila Peace. Sage Publications,

London, 1998, 193 pages, £15á99, 0 761

95566 6.

This useful text offers a diverse range of

care issues that span the nature and forms

of care to care principles that affect prac-

tice as well as policy. `Care matters'

include both formal care, e.g. for pay, as

well as informal, lay, family, and social

care considerations. The authors have

comprehensive, compatible, yet diverse,

disciplinary backgrounds in the ®elds of

health, social, and human services. As

such they are able to offer multiple

discourses around care; what counts and

what matters in care; who cares; care work

and overall what is it, and what is at stake

when we don't care. The organization of

the book is around: (i) conceptual issues,

such as values, relationships, assumptions,

and to some extent care, therapies or prac-

tice modalities, such as use of reminis-

cence, life review; (ii) care contexts, such

as hospice, residential, domestic, home

care, etc.; and (iii) different client groups,

such as terminal care, chronic illness, elder

care. In addition to these main areas the

text offers some focused discussion related

to health policy and health care changes

when care matters are incorporated into

health care systems.

Complex philosophical-moral concerns

are framed around a custodial care

services orientation to caregiving, in

contrast to deeper dimensions of caring,

concern, human connections, feelings

and relationships. Indeed, one of the

most seminal contributions to these

complex aspects of care are addressed

in the ®rst chapter and ®rst paragraph by

Ann Brechin, where she touches on

consequences when we as individuals,

professionals, or as a community `Don't

Care'. For example, when we don't care

we resist responsibility, resist appeals as

a call to care as basic aspects of our

being; in not caring, we end up in

alienation, refusing the moral imperative

to cooperative, mutually rewarding expe-

riences.

My only remaining question and

critique of this work is how it could have

missed acknowledging or incorporating

the wealth of nursing history, philosophy,

theories, practices, and ethics of caring

discourse that has evolved in the disci-

pline and profession of nursing over these

past four decades. In that this text is

multidisciplinary, it seems to have

omitted a major discipline with a rich

history of art and science of caring. Other-

wise, this work reconsiders care and

caring for new reasons and is a most

valuable contribution to multiple audi-

ences of professionals and academics

alike. It may be considered a foundation

text for interdisciplinary studies in health,

social work, health administration, and

health policy.

Jean Watson

RN PhD FAAN, HNC

Distinguished Professor of Nursing;

Endowed Chair Caring Science

University of Colorado Health Sciences

Center

Denver

Colorado

USA

Epidemiology: An Introduction by Graham

Moon, Myles Gould et al. Open University

Press, Buckingham, 2000, 190 pages,

£16á99, ISBN 0 335 20012 5.

If you want good research design advice

combined with statistical advice, ask an

epidemiologist. This book, written by two

epidemiologists with much help from

others demonstrates this maxim well.

The uncompromising bias of the epidem-

iologist towards quantitative research is

always refreshing. After all, epidemiology

is about numbers, cause and effect. In the

age of clinical effectiveness in nursing,

the profession is turning, or returning,

more readily towards quantitative

methods and this, in a remarkably short

space, manages to convey all the elements

of quantitative design and some essential

features of analysis while keeping the

level reasonable. I especially liked the

chapter on experiments as it really

expounded on the threats to validity.

Another excellent chapter contained the

odds ratio and there was a similarly

excellent chapter on meta-analysis.

Perhaps what I liked most of all were

the clear explanations of terms which

have become everyday, e.g. standardized

mortality ratio, but which it is dif®cult,

unless you are using these concepts daily,

to remember the precise de®nition of. I am

sure that I am not alone and I now know

that this text will come to the rescue. The

Open University Press are famed for

producing excellent books in the social

sciences ± they have done it again and I

would say that this book ought to be on

every research course reading list.

Roger Watson

Media Reviews Editor

Media reviews

Ó 2000 Blackwell Science Ltd, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 32(5), 1307±1312 1309