Question

Discuss the ramifications of choosing an inappropriate design for a research study.

Answer 1

Quantitative Research Designs

The first article I reviewed was,“Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Suicide Attempt History among Veterans Receiving Mental Health Services.” The researchers completed a nonexperimental quantitative study with a retrospective design. The purpose of the study was to investigate the significance of suicide attempts among veterans that was receiving mental health services that has Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and both PTSD and TBI. There was previous studies done that concluded veterans with PTSD and TBI had a higher percentage of suicide rates compared to the general population (Brenner, et al., 2011). The researchers randomly selected two control groups that matched in age and gender from a mental health clinic database. “In designing a case-control study, researchers try to identify controls without the disease or condition who are similar as possible to the cases with regard to key confounding variables” (Polit & Beck, 2012, p. 224). One control group had TBI and PTSD, the other group with Neurologic Disease. The researchers concluded that veterans with both TBI and PTSD have an increased risk of suicide attempts, which warrants further research on appropriate interventions to prevent suicide among this population (Brenner, et al., 2011). I believe the researchers used an appropriate design for this study as they have identified the significance of suicide risk among this population of veterans.

The second article I reviewed was “Alcohol Use and Craving among Veterans with Mental Health Disorders and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.”The researchers completed a nonexperimental quantitative study with a prospective design. The purpose of the study was to identify the significance of alcohol use and alcohol cravings for veterans that have mental health disorders (MHD) and mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI). The research involved forty-eight “U.S. Veterans deployed during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts who were recruited from three Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Polytrauma Network Sites (PNSs)” (Herrold, et al., 2014, p. 1399). The researchers utilized the Penn Alcohol Craving Scale via the telephone once a week for a period of six weeks (Herrold, et al., 2014). This study was the first study that identified the significance between alcohol use and cravings among veterans with MHD and MTBI.

Ramifications of Choosing an Inappropriate Design for a Research Study

                Quantitative research is about casual relationships so the design of the study holds a strong impact of the plausible results of the study (Polit & Beck, 2012). Choosing an inappropriate design can cause the results to be inaccurate. Quantitative studies “should be carefully scrutinized” to verify the appropriate design was utilized (Polit & Beck, 2012, p. 230).

References:

Brenner, L. A., Betthauser, L. M., Homaifar, B. Y., Villarreal, E., Harwood, J. E., Staves, P. J.,

& Huggins, J. A. (2011). Posttraumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and suicide attempt history among veterans receiving mental health services. Suicide & Life-Threatening Behavior, 41(4), 416-423. doi:10.1111/j.1943-278X.2011.00041.x

Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2012). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for

nursing practice (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Herrold, A. A., Jordan, N., High, W. M., Babcock-Parziale, J., Chambers, R. A., Smith, B., & ...

Pape, T. L. (2014). Alcohol use and craving among Veterans with mental health disorders and mild traumatic brain injury. Journal Of Rehabilitation Research & Development, 51(9), 1397-1410 14p. doi:10.1682/JRRD.2013.07.0170