Designing a Research Study

Description of Study and Design to Be Used in Future Research Project

Topic 1. Describe a vulnerable population in terms of research. Why the population is considered vulnerable? What other groups might also be considered vulnerable populations?

A vulnerable population in terms of research is a population that is often overlooked by the academic community or a population that does not fit in with the mainstream sample. Waisel (2013) states that: “vulnerable populations include patients who are racial or ethnic minorities, children, elderly, socioeconomically disadvantaged, underinsured or those with certain medical conditions,” and that these populations typically “have health conditions that are exacerbated by unnecessarily inadequate healthcare” (p. 186). Asian-Americans with type 2 diabetes are a vulnerable population in the U.S. They are a racial and ethnic minority on whom there is scant medical research in terms of how best to provide quality care for them (Walton-Moss, Samuel, Nguyen, Commodore-Mensah, Hayat & Szanton, 2014).

Other groups that might also be considered vulnerable populations would include other minority racial and ethnic groups as well as groups that minority in terms of gender identity, socio-economic status, or groups with disabilities, and so on. These could include homosexual populations, HIV-infected populations, drug abusers, and many others.

Topic 2. Assume you want to do a project that compares the survey results before an intervention to those after an intervention in the same sample (the same people will take both surveys). You plan to use a paired t-test to analyze your results. Using the \\\\\\\"Determining the Appropriate Sample Size,\\\\\\\" Topic Material, perform a sample size calculation to determine how large your sample should be. Justify your sample size calculation with citations. Discuss how your sample size may affect the validity of your study.

A sample calculation of how to determine the size of a sample population will depend on the confidence level Z score that the researcher wants to achieve. If the confidence level aimed at is 90%, the Z score would be 1.645. This score is then plugged into another equation:

Necessary Sample Size = (Z-score)2 * StdDev*(1-StdDev) / (margin of error)2

0.5 is normal standard of deviation and 0.05 is normal margin of error acceptance, so, the equation that is used would look like this:

Necessary Sample Size = ((1.96)2 x .5(.5)) / (.05)2

(3.8416 x .25) / .0025

.9604 / .0025

384.16

385 respondents are required.

As Kadam and Bhalerao (2010) note, a sample is not an entire population but rather on a representational grouping of it—“a further subset of the target population which we would like to include in the study. Thus a ‘sample’ is a portion, piece, or segment that is representative of a whole” (p. 55). For the sample to be effective, it has to have significance, and the level of significance is the “p” value, and typically the range for “p” to have significance is anywhere below 0.05 or p < 0.05.

Topic 3. What are the assumptions for a t-test? How should these be run? Do you want to see a p value of

They typical assumptions that are made when conducting a t-test are that the scale of measurement will follow a continuous/ordinal scale—for example, the scores in a math test.

The next assumption is that the data will come from sample that is representative of the population as a whole—usually that means the sample is randomly selected.

The next assumption is that when the data is plotted it will show a normal distribution with a distribution curve that is bell-shaped.

The next assumption would be the sample size is sufficiently large. The larger the sample size, the more likely the results will produce the desired bell-shaped curve on the plot.

Finally, the last assumption is that there will be homogeneity of variance, which means that equal variance will be observed in the standard deviations (Mertler & Reinhart, 2016).

You would always want to see a p value of

Topic 4. Review the types of data that are considered protected health information (PHI). Do you plan to collect any of this data during your project? How would the collection of this data affect your project (whether you plan to collect it or not)?

Protected health information (PHI) consists of any data types that reveal or contain personal identifiable information and is:

· Communicated via digital messaging

· Stored in a digital format

· Communicated and recorded on any other format, such as paper or even oral communication

· Information about a person’s health that is created or distributed by a health care professional

· Contains information related to an individual’s prior, present and even future health

· This data can include any of the following types:

· Name, Individual’s address, Dates regarding an individual’s health care or events in life—such as birth, death, hospitalization date and so on; Phone numbers, Email, SSN, Health records number, Account, Driver’s license number, VIN, IP address, URL, Photograph showing face, and so on.

In some cases, PHI that is not off limits consists of the following:

· education records covered by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, as amended, 20 U.S.C. 1232g;

· records described at 20 U.S.C. 1232g(a)(4)(B)(iv);

· employment records held by a covered entity (see below for definition) in its role as employer; and

· information regarding a person who has been deceased for more than 50 years (Indiana University, 2018)

In my research, I would have to collect some PHI, and for that reason I would have to have safeguards in place to ensure that the data is protected, cannot be stolen, hacked, or leaked. The data would have to be secured either in a digital lockbox or in a safe to which only the researcher has the key. This would impact my study because it mean that I have to take extra steps in terms of securing the data that I collect and that I also obtain the participant’s informed consent. However, in the study, none of this data could be identifiable in terms of being linked to a particular individual: all of it would have to coded so that no participant is identifiable based on the results obtained.

Topic 5 . Compare your DPI project manuscript thus far to the \\\\\\\"Revised Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence: SQUIRE 2.0\\\\\\\" guidelines. Discuss what you can improve in your DPI project manuscript.

My project has for its PICOT a focus on showing whether culturally tailored health education can assist Asian Americans in more effectively addressing the issue of type 2 diabetes. This project fits into the SQUIRE guidelines because the project adheres to the framework supplied by SQUIRE’s 2.0 (2017) guidelines, which “are intended for reports that describe system level work to improve the quality, safety, and value of healthcare, and used methods to establish that observed outcomes were due to the intervention(s).” This ensures that the project is guided adequately.

By following the framework, my project can be sure of obtaining that the observed outcomes of the project are due to the intervention used, which in this case is the tailoring of health education to the culture of the population observed: but the project could be improved by focusing more on the limitations of my study and what they might entail. Limitations can impact reliability and validity, so my project may need to be improved in this area, and some thought should be given to understand the ways in which my project is limited. I must ask whether the study will be generalizable, whether there is any bias, whether the design is imprecise, whether my methods are appropriate, whether my measurements are adequate, and whether my analysis is correct. All of these will tell what my limitations are and that will affect the study’s internal validity according to SQUIRE (2017).

Topic 6. Describe the process of a retrospective chart review. How are these data collected? How would you access the data? What is the validity and reliability of these data? What steps would you need to take to ensure these data were accurately pulled from the database?

The retrospective chart review is a medical record review that included pre-recorded data that is related to the patient: this data is used by the researcher to answer the research question(s) (Vassar & Holzmann, 2013). This type of data is collected by identifying the variables informing the type of data that is to be extracted. First, the data has to be based on the research question, or the concept that is used to guide the study. Second, a data abstraction instrument is required for collecting the data: “each variable needs a simple and unambiguous response section, where the abstractors can capture the required information” (Gearing, Mian, Barber & Ickowicz, 2006). The data would be accessed by obtaining permission from the records committee overseeing handling of the records.

The validity and reliability of these data would be determined by the variables that are identified as a result of the steps taken in designing the study—from the step of conceptualizing the research question, to conducting the literature review, to identifying the correct variables that will help to answer the research question, to selecting an appropriate data abstraction instrument. If these steps are not followed sufficiently, there is a good chance that data would not be pulled accurately from the database.

Topic 7. Discuss the basic principles of data interpretation used to translate research outcomes into practice. What are common barriers to translating research outcomes into practice? Describe any barriers you may anticipate as you plan to translate the results of your own prospectus into practice

As Curtis, Fry, Shaban and Considine (2017) note, a research study “is not complete until the study findings have been disseminated via presentations at professional forums and published in a peer?reviewed journal and where appropriate recommendations regarding how the research findings could be translated into clinical practice are made” (p. 862). There are, however, many barriers to this practice and the barriers include the following: “the increasing volume of research evidence being produced, access to new evidence, the skills to appraise the quality of the evidence, time to locate and read evidence, and the capacity to apply evidence” (Curtis et al., 2017, p. 863). I anticipate that my biggest barrier will be lacking the skills to appraise the quality of the evidence. I will require some practice in this area so as to be able to translate the results of my own prospectus into practice.

Topic 8. Select a journal in which you would be interested in having your research published. Review the author guidelines on the Journal for Nurse Practitioners (JNP) website and answer the following questions. How could author guidelines be beneficial to your practice?

Author guidelines can be beneficial to my practice because they give an idea of how to format your submission so that it can be accepted by the journal. Once the article is properly formatted and written according to the guidelines required by the journal, it may be published. That means the results of the study will be printed for my colleagues and peers to be able to see—which means that my work would be contributing to the advance of EBP in my practice.

Peer-review is an important step in the academic research world because it means that your research has been subjected to a blind or double-blind peer-review process. That means that if you submit your research to a peer-reviewed journal, it is examined by scholars in the field first before its contents are published. This serves to filter out material that is not fit for publication because it lacks merit, its study is not precise, its methods are dubious, its findings biased, or some other issue is at hand. If my work is published in a journal, my colleagues can embrace it because it would be a good foundation for developing and implementing EBP in their own practice.