Question

In 2014, researchers did an interesting study about the role of communication in the treatment of chronic back pain. The researchers randomly assigned patients with back pain to one of two groups. Half the patients in the study experienced only limited conversation from the physical therapist. With the other half of the patients the therapists asked open-ended questions and listened attentively to the answers. They expressed empathy about the patients’ situation and offered words of encouragement about getting better. Patients were questioned about their level of pain at the beginning of the study and after one month of physical therapy by a researcher who did not know to which groups the patients belonged. Patients who had physical therapists who communicated reported a greater reduction in pain as compared to those who had physical therapists who gave limited communication. Discuss this research. In your answer make sure you discuss the following: Identify the hypothesis, independent variable, and dependent variable. Did the study try to address the problem of selection bias? What is selection bias? Do you think the study was successful in addressing this problem? Did the study try to address the problem of experimenter bias? What is experimenter bias? Do you think the study was successful in addressing this problem? Why is this study better than a correlational study? What is the major limitation of correlational studies? How might the results of this study be used to influence how physical therapists are trained?

Answer 1

The depedend variable would be the condition of the patients and the independent varibale would be the the conversation of the therapists with the patients.

The correlation here is thst the talking helps better recovery. There is a high probability of selection bias in the given study, the patients who are in the treatment that got better, could have been patients with more likely to recover.

Section bias can be prevented by randomized trail, which the study did, but sometimes it can fail due to experimenters bias which seeps in on ways to verify the hypothesis.

Correlational studies have a bug drawback, which is that correlation discover mere correlation and does not actually prove causation, that is, there could be other causes for the phenomenon. Hence, it isn't determinative.

The results of this study could help in training therapists appropriately in order to have a well rounded therapy for the given patients and faster recovery as a result.