Question

This week, we will discuss the research design and sample for your nursing clinical issue. The research design flows from the research question and outlines the plan for the study that will answer the research question. The design identifies the major components of the study. It is important to remember that there is no one best design for a research study. The design identifies the major components of the study. Please note that there is no one best design for a research study. Design may seem overwhelming, but if you start with understanding Qualitative Research Design, Quantitative Research Design or Mixed Method, which as it suggests is a mixture of the two and build from there, I believe the concept is easier to grasp.

Research question: Which techniques or strategies are most effective in promoting compliance to adhering to psych medication regimens?

Week 2 question: How do incarcerated inmates age 17 and older (P) who are educated to adhere to a use of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors antidepressants (I) Versus incarcerated inmates not educated to adhere on use Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors antidepressants (C) ease symptoms of moderate to severe depression (O) within 3 to 6 months of consistent use (T).

After you review the designs, describe which research design you would expect to find when searching for evidence relevant to your own research question from Week 2. Why? Explain your answer.

The most common sampling method is the convenience sample; therefore, many of the studies that you find for evidence use this sampling method. What are the implications for using a convenience sample on the way you interpret and use the findings?

Answer 1

Nonadherence to medication can range from patients who refuse to take medications due to lack of acceptance of the need for medication, to patients who recognize the need for medication but is not adherent to the treatment plan due to forgetfulness or financial issues. There are various strategies which encourages the patient to stay adherent to the psych medications.

• Therapeutic supportive services provides counseling with the goal of identifying cognitive and motivational barriers to adherence.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy helps to deal with inaccurate beliefs and negative perceptions about the medications and need for treatment.
• Electronic reminders via text and telephone will also be effective in helping such patients who tend to forget the timely intake of medications.
• Financial incentives.
• Pharmacy based interventions like use of unit dose preparation of medications, medication education is provided in packing.
• Environmental support like homevisits and use of patients environment to generate cues as reminder for adherence to treatment.

Answer 2) Serotonin reuptake inhibitor is acommon antidepressant that helps to overcome the depression. It eases depression by increasing the level of serotonin in brain. Its a chemical messenger that carries signals between brain cells. The serotonin reuptake inhibitos block the reabsorption of serotonin in brain making more serotonin available. This medication is highly addictive. Non adherence to the treatment will precipitate withdrawal symptoms. Therefore the incarcerated inmates who were educated to adhere to a use of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ease the symptoms of moderate to severe depression within 3 to 6 months of consistent use compared to those incarcerated inmates who where not educated to adhere to the treatment.

3) In the above stated research, the appropriate design used should be Qualitative research design. This type of research design is simple and can be used easily among the psychiatric patients. The method of data collection includes interviews, survey, observation, and document analysis.

Application of an intervention like in a quantitative research design, on a group of psychiatric patient may be difficult as their cooperation may not be adequate. These individuals can not be forced to participate in a research study. Therefore through observation, surveys and with simple interviews on can find the adherence of the group to the treatment plan.

4) The convenience sampling is used by the researcher as its ease to use. In this methods the samples who are convenient or easy accessible to choose are selected as study on entire population is often difficult. But at the time of interpretation of data, it has been found that the findings obtained through convenience sampling differs significantly from those obtained from entire population. This in turn develops bias with the outcome of the research. therefore the use of convenience sampling although is easy but its not considered to be representative of the entire group. The result or finding obtained from convenience samoling does not speak for the entire population. Thus the external validity of the study is too low.