Management of Fatigue in Patients on Peritoneal

¶ … management of fatigue in patients on peritoneal dialysis and respond to the following critique questions. Do not provide simply yes or no answers to the questions. Provide examples to support your responses. Submit the assignment through the assignment link in Moodle

Identify the study design. Identify the specific type of quasi-experimental design used in the study.

The quasi-experimental design of this research was to implement exercise interventions within a patient population undergoing continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis. There was no random sampling because of the very small population that met the inclusion criteria. The independent variable was the level of exercise, while the dependent variable was the reported measures of fatigue experienced by the participants. These measurements were then statistically analyzed using

For the specific design, what are the threats to internal validity? What are the threats to external validity?

There were threats to validity based on the individuals who participated in the study. Some were older than others, while some were male and thus had greater levels of strength before the study even began. To ensure reliability, the researchers used the Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.39 to 0.48. Moreover, there were external threats to validity as well. If the participants health began to deteriorate because of their medical conditions, this would ultimately affect their performances during the eight-week intervention.

4. What is the treatment or intervention? Was a protocol used to implement the intervention?

The intervention here was supervised exercise. The intervention was implemented for a term of eight weeks, where participants increased their exercise routine under the supervision and guidance of their nephrologists.

5. Was a probability or nonprobability sampling method used to select the sample? Provide a rationale for your answer.

No, the sample size was already small enough that these measures were not needed. Out of 45 patients originally sought for the study, only 14 actually met all the inclusion criteria.

6. What were the sampling criteria (inclusion/exclusion)?

The inclusion criteria for the study required participants to have been on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) daily before the onset of the study for at least a period of two months. Additionally, subjects had to have measured a minimum hemoglobin count of 11.0 g/dL at the time the study started. Finally. The participants' nephrologists had to sign off allowing them to participate in the study. There were also exclusion criteria. If participants had a "hemoglobin of less than 11.0 g/dL at the onset of the study, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, symptomatic cardiac disease or current participation in a cardiac rehabilitation, unstable angina, chronic heart failure, shortness of breath at rest, and active infection," (Straub et al., 2008). Clearly, the researchers did not want to include participants with heart conditions that could be aggravated at increased physical activity.

7. What was the total sample size?