Essay Sample: Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Research

The first step will define interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research; Interdisciplinary research is defined as any study undertaken by scholars from more than one distinct scientific discipline. Interdisciplinary research is based upon on conceptual model that incorporates theoretical frameworks from those disciplines, and it uses methodology and study design that is not limited to any field (Ferguson, 2016). Also, it requires the use of standpoints and skills of the involved disciplines all through the numerous stages of the research process. On the other multidisciplinary research can be defined as a search of truth, which is achieved with the help of multiple specialized branches of learning, which aims at achieving a common goal with the assistance of knowledge of other disciplines. The paper will discuss the comparison and differences between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. Also, it shall look at areas where interdisciplinary research has been applied.

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Comparison and Contrast of Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Research

For a long time, these two terms have been used interchangeably and regarded as synonyms. However, this is not the case; this is two different terms with differences against each other. The goal of interdisciplinary research should have something to bring to one's collaboration, be what an individual wish or plan to contribute to other fields. For example, being a statistician, one of the Interdisciplinary researches is to describe research that links the strong analytical point of more than two different scientific disciplines to solve a given biological problem.

Taking, for example, behavioral scientists and molecular biologists may come together and combine their research tools, technologies, and approaches to powerfully solve the problems of complex health problems such as pains (Ferguson, 2016). Also, interdisciplinary research contains the existence of a continuum of collaboration. (Morillo, et al., 2003) states that in a study undertaken by the Health Services Research, there was the universal acknowledgment of a range concerning interdisciplinary research and the amount of synthesis involved in the procedure and finished results.

Multidisciplinary research, on the other hand, is a phenomenon that is much concentrated in developing countries to solve their problems. The most important feature of this discipline research is that in this age of sophisticated lifestyle, it makes the study relatively easy and broad. This approach denotes a progressive scholarly method. The term itself implies that knowledge of quite a few disciplines is to a given problem and is also an add-on to one another in such a way that it can be possible to pull a definite cut conclusion, which is free from being branded as secluded (Morelli et al., 2003). Also, in this discipline research, a numeral of fields is involved in an individual line of investigation, which is specific to a problem.

The research has become a significant need to solve the recent problems; the reason for this is due to its increased dominance of problem-solving. These problems tend to be involved in nature. They require knowledge from all multidisciplinary aspects such as political, psychological, and social. Therefore the only help available comes from the interdisciplinary approach. However, for a productive interdisciplinary process to take place, there must be effective some 'softer' personal skills such as leadership, teamwork, selflessness, and tolerance of difference and ambiguity (Peng et al., 2008). Unlike interdisciplinary, the foremost goal of multidisciplinary research is accuracy and objectivity. It gives sufficient opportunity to study the problem with different perspectives and, at the same time, giving way to a comparative study; eventually, this leads to the elimination of all defects in the results.

The cross-cultural approach can be applied to know all about any specific circumstances. This can only be attained through an interdisciplinary research team. Besides, this discipline research tends to encourage the study of phenomena in an integrated fashion. Hence this led to avoidance of defect of isolated approach. Unlike interdisciplinary research, this discipline is of most importance in the field of law, and this is because doctrine is not confined to one particular aspect of human beings such as cultural, social, economic, and political, which are the encounter of man's day to day life (Bowman, 2016). Stating further multidisciplinary research helps in the whole study of the problem from several outlooks. It lightens the chances of 'monotonous' and 'biasness' results.

Comparison of Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary

Both of them are highly regarded as useful, and this is evident because many academic institutions are in a big way involved and organized in conducts that influence the improvement of particular disciplines. Policies that govern the promotion, allocation of resources, and hiring of people mostly work against either of the two subjects, (Bowman, 2016). Also, both of these disciplines rely on each other for them to come up with a suitable conclusion. This is because no of them can assert being capable of solving all the problems. Therefore they seek help from another for a better result. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary researches are treated as two ends of the same continuum. Extend in which the Integration of their component not only depends on association but relies on the possibility of fostering the programs to the patient and a coordinated assessment.

These comparisons and differences between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research can be explained in the following context treatment program for Fibromyalgia. It is an example of a chronic pain disorder of unknown etiology, which affects mainly women. It is also characterized by symptoms such as disturbed sleep, stiffness, fatigue, and psychological distress, cognitive impairment posing a significant threat to the future and quality of life of the affected person.

The compound structures of the syndrome and its several symptoms are moderately clarified by central sensitization methods that interact with social factors and psychological, which in turn leads to a phenomenon where the effect of each element is increased and acts in a synergic style (Berman,2017). Offered its complicated nature, and the unfortunate efficacy of ordinary medical interventions, the incorporation of different health disciplines for its understanding and the improvement of specific treatments has long been advocated and established.

Professionals use interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research to come up with ample results. Hence a considerable number of petitions combining skills drawn from diverse fields, for example, physical therapy, medicine, and psychology, have been established and proving to be useful for the upgrading of the few symptoms of this particular syndrome. Nevertheless, these programs are very heterogeneous in terms of duration, objectives, setting, format, therapeutic components, and professionals involved. This high variability is reflected by different organizational structures of the pain treatment facilities and poses some doubt on the likelihood of pooling the outcomes of trials evaluating their interventions.

The alignment of the rehabilitation teams and the combination of their members seem to primarily be important in distinguishing several programs since there is a very vast difference concerning how their various disciplines are coordinated, multidisciplinary research, and interdisciplinary research are mostly used as synonyms. Looking at it from a theoretical concept, the difference between the two concepts is substantial. Therefore Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary treatments are practically different, and this difference ought to be revealed in their structures. Mainly in the situation of programs addressing a complex disorder, such as Fibromyalgia Syndrome, this matter must be taken into consideration for the sake of a critical assessment of the literature, which can be an initial step for quantitative synthesis.

Scopus and PubMed conducted research on the available reports evaluating and describing interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary interventions for Fibromyalgia up to the year 2016 (Ferguson, 2016). To show the difference between the two field differences, studies were taken. They included in the review, among them being the terms "multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, which in turn were rarely engaged and were never used as primary descriptors of the structure of the involvements, whereas eleven treatments were defined as interdisciplinary and twenty-five as multidisciplinary (Bowman, 2016).

However, they lacked a clear difference between these concepts. In some circumstances, the terms can be used interchangeably. More commonly, the programs were divers concerning. The strategies used to integrate the different outlooks of the operators and can indicate in a continuum that begins with multidisciplinary treatments concerning limited disciplines whose components are merely added and ends with more compound interventions based on a synchronized assessment and care.

They were basing the treatments on various components that integrate so that the sick patient met the different health workers in different moments of the program in a consistent manner. This research aimed to describe the features of the available integrated interventions for the issue of Fibromyalgia, taking into focus how the different disciplines that is interdisciplinary and Integration of multidisciplinary into the healthcare and the valuation of multicomponent treatment for chronic pain disorders, (Lyles et al., 2010). The search shows that the two terms as two parts of the same continuum.

The idea of the original perspective and analyzing how the Integration of different disciplines is provided is conducted by the number of programs. Most of them observe the suitable organizational frameworks featured by various applications. Organizational contexts are multiple and are characterized by different amounts of complexity. However, on the one hand, minimally integrated courses provide a comparison of more than two different disciplines, which are simply added. These programs can be seen as the model of multidisciplinary involvement since every worker works independently, there is no overlapping between the unique treatment modalities, and usually, the program organized vertically.

However, findings indicated out that there are multidisciplinary programs that tend to use a more flexible and integrated framework, which allows people to adjust the treatment and to involve the patient in the decisions concerning his/her care. In more solid programs, the joint pain management sessions are mutually conducted by different workers, letting the professionals build a collective perspective regarding the various topics.

Classical interdisciplinary models appear, however, based on weekly team discussions about the patients, which can go along with other strategies, such as education about interdisciplinary work, a coordinated assessment, among others (Reich, 2006). The presence of team meetings implies to be reflected as the main characteristic which describes their treatment as interdisciplinary research, partly overlooking other components such as creating shared goals, making team conferences with the victim and his family, and providing united leadership and a detailed assessment.