Study by Lucas, Murray, and Kinra (2013)
The objective of this study is to conduct a critical review of three peer-reviewed qualitative journal articles with a particular focus on public health. Library databases such as Medline, Web of Science were searched with restrictions to articles published between 2008 and 2018. Public health is a matter of concern in every country and studies are always conducted to provide solutions to diseases that affect public health, thus this research was not restricted to studies in a particular location. The articles critiqued were under the overall subject of public health but with varying topics such as health beliefs in relation to lifestyle diseases, lifestyle interventions on chronic diseases and perceptions of patients diagnosed with chronic illness.
A review of qualitative literature by Lucas, Murray, and Kinra (2013) on the health beliefs of UK south Asians in relation to lifestyle diseases was carried out with an aim of assessing existing evidence in qualitative literature on health beliefs and views of the UK South Asian adults.
The study used three electronic strategies to search a wide range of library databases for relevant articles. These include broad-based terms, free-text terms and thesaurus terms. A checklist criteria designed by Munro et al. (2007) was used to appraise the quality of articles to be included in the study. The study design adopted a metaethnographic approach (Thomas & Harden, 2008) to synthesize themes and patterns ascertained through reading and reviewing the included studies. These descriptions of analysis and synthesis gives the study its internal validity in addition to the fact that the study adopted standardised approaches of assessing the various articles for inclusion in the study.
The study adopted an inclusion criteria in which all the articles to be included in the study had to meet:
- The main focus of the quantitative research is to examine the health behaviours, beliefs, and perceptions
- The primary participants in the study are of South Asian origin and are adults
- The study is carried out mainly as a part of qualitative methodology.
The above inclusion criteria makes the study design most appropriate for meeting the research objective which was to ascertain whether the health beliefs of UK South Asian are in any way associated with lifestyle diseases.
The authors also used translation approach after identification of the themes of study. This involved the comparison of themes in all the papers with an aim of matching the themes from each paper to the other, which develops into a line-of argument synthesis. Such an approach ensured that the authors developed new models or thoroughly understood the themes across articles and not just a description of them. Furthermore, the inclusion of the ten thoroughly synthesized articles is evidence of good rigour. This approach increased the rigour of the article.
Validity
The article provides a detailed procedure on the methodology and thus making it replicable in other settings.
The article does however have one major weakness. The articles that were included in the study had few details regarding sample validation and examination of generalizability, and had limited evidence of triangulation.
The use of wide range of relevant articles with a clear inclusion criteria, use of standardised approaches in quality synthesis, and detailed methodology are strengths that gives the article good rigour.
The researchers conducted a study on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of lifestyle interventions with a particular focus on dietary habits and physical activity in persons diagnosed with severe mental disorders. The study searched four electronic databases with search terms relevant to the study topic and the search was restricted to randomized controlled trials, meta-analysis, reviews, and clinical trials. A detailed relevance of the articles was conducted for purposes of inclusion, this involved selection of articles on the basis of the abstract or title and exclusion of duplicate records. This is evidence that the study clearly addressed the aim of the study through its methodology because only relevant articles to the study topic were included in the study. Furthermore, the search strategy was systematic enough with the details of inclusion and inclusion, thus, ensuring that only relevant content was analysed in the study to arrive at reliable conclusions.
- randomized controlled trials, meta-analysis, reviews, and clinical trials
- All studies that targeted general populations even though they assessed the impact of weight and BMI on lifestyle interventions in physical activity and dietary habits.
- If primary findings were not fundamentally based on variation in weight and BMI
- All non-systematic reviews
- All non-comparative trials
The above inclusion and exclusion criteria ensured the appropriateness of the sample size and that the synthesis of the articles included in the research lead to results that met the objective of the study.
The study has enhanced validity by using comparability in which articles with variations in the study variables such as comparing individuals with severe mental disorders has been carried out. Additionally, validity has also been enhanced in the assessment of the quality of the studies by the use of the Cochrane Centre checklist (Cochrane Netherlands, 2009) in addition to a checklist for the evaluation of the procedural quality of both randomized and non-randomized researches of health care interventions (Sterne et al., 2016).
The study has provided a comprehensive methodological approach in the study by providing contextual background of the study, sampling procedure, data collection and analysis. This further affirms the validity and reliability of the interpretations and conclusion.
The rigour of the article is good as a result of the use of various techniques for imposing rigour such as triangulation (used multiple sources of data) and validation of relevant articles for inclusion.
Transferability
However, the article considered studies published between 1990 and 2010. This range of period is too wide and the findings then on the study topic may not be applicable to the current circumstances that are characteristic of constant variation.
Ahlin and Billhult (2012) carried out a qualitative study with an objective of determining how women deal with necessary lifestyle shifts as a result of the diagnosis of chronic illness with a particular focus on type 2 diabetes. Ten women diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and who resided in Western Sweden were selected as the sample size. The study adopted purposive sampling technique and participants aged between 37 t0 38 years were selected to achieve variation (Robinson, 2014). In-depth interviews were used to gather data from the respondent. The study design was thus, appropriate in seeking to meet the objective of the research since only diabetic women of varying age were included in the study. The use of purposive sampling technique ensured that the analysis remained relevant to the objective of the study and that the sample size was most appropriate and reflected the objective of the study. This further increased reliability of the findings.
The study ascertained validity of the research by adopting a multidimensional perspective (Noble & Smith, 2015) during data collection/interviewing with an objective of gaining existing comprehensive information of the phenomena. The study is also transparent in its analytical methods. The research also ensured validity of the study by the use of multiple coding (Carnevale, 2016) in which the interview outcomes were corroborated by more than one individual. The stud also adopted Giorgi’s phenomenological research approach in its analysis (Giorgi, 2009). The use of this standardised approach in data analysis strengthened the credibility of the synthesis and findings.
The methodology section of the study is comprehensive, proving the breadth and depth of the procedures in sampling, inclusion criteria, data analysis and presentation. This makes the study to be applicable in varying contexts. Additionally, the authors have provided real world implications for treatment procedures for type 2 diabetic women such as the internal struggles they undergo as a result of diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. This makes the study applicable to any other context in which women are diagnosed with lifestyle disease.
The study has adopted various techniques for imposing rigour such as multiple coding, respondent validation, and reflexivity (researcher directly interacting with participants (Fallman, & Stolterman, 2010). This enhances the validity, reliability, and credibility of the study, findings and conclusion.
Strengths and weaknesses
One of the major weakness of the study is that it doesn’t provide justification for selecting its study design such as purposive sampling approach and the use of in-depth interviews in data collection.
Conclusion
All the three articles examined have demonstrated varying levels of rigour. The article by Lucas, Murray, and Kinra (2013) adopted various techniques in imposing its trustworthiness. For instance, the study used a standardised checklist designed by Munro et al. (2007) in quality analysis, and adopted a metaethnographic approach study design. The detailed description of the inclusion criteria, data collection and analysis improved the transparency of the study and hence the enhanced its trustworthiness. The article by Verhaeghe, De Maeseneer, Maes, Van Heeringen, and Annemans (2011) also demonstrated a high level of rigour due to the detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria, evidence of validity and transferability. Finally, the article by Ahlin and Billhult (2012) also has good rigour as a result of the comprehensiveness of the research methodology which imposes transparency alongside other features such as multiple coding, respondent validation, and reflexivity.
References
Ahlin, K., & Billhult, A. (2012). Lifestyle changes–a continuous, inner struggle for women
with type 2 diabetes: A qualitative study. Scandinavian journal of primary health care, 30(1), 41-47.
Carnevale, F. A. (2016). Authentic qualitative research and the quest for methodological
rigour. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research Archive, 34(2).
Cochrane Netherlands. (2009). Checklists en andere downloads. Amsterdam. Retrieved from
https://netherlands.cochrane.org/beoordelingsformulieren-en-andere-downloads
Fallman, D., & Stolterman, E. (2010). Establishing criteria of rigour and relevance in
interaction design research. Digital Creativity, 21(4), 265-272.
Giorgi, A. (2009). The descriptive phenomenological method in psychology: A modified
Husserlian approach. Duquesne University Press.
Lucas, A., Murray, E., & Kinra, S. (2013). Heath beliefs of UK South Asians related to
lifestyle diseases: a review of qualitative literature. Journal of obesity, 2013. Retrieved from https://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/jobes/2013/827674.pdf
Munro, S. A., Lewin, S. A., Smith, H. J., Engel, M. E., Fretheim, A., & Volmink, J. (2007).
Patient adherence to tuberculosis treatment: a systematic review of qualitative research. PLoS medicine, 4(7), e238.
Noble, H., & Smith, J. (2015). Issues of validity and reliability in qualitative
research. Evidence-Based Nursing, ebnurs-2015.
Robinson, O. C. (2014). Sampling in interview-based qualitative research: A theoretical and
practical guide. Qualitative research in psychology, 11(1), 25-41.
Sterne, J. A., Hernán, M. A., Reeves, B. C., Savovi?, J., Berkman, N. D., Viswanathan, M., …
& Carpenter, J. R. (2016). ROBINS-I: a tool for assessing risk of bias in non-randomised studies of interventions. Bmj, 355, i4919.
Thomas, J., & Harden, A. (2008). Methods for the thematic synthesis of qualitative research
in systematic reviews. BMC medical research methodology, 8(1), 45.
Verhaeghe, N., De Maeseneer, J., Maes, L., Van Heeringen, C., & Annemans, L. (2011).
Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of lifestyle interventions on physical activity and eating habits in persons with severe mental disorders: a systematic review. International journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 8(1), 28. Retrieved from https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1479-5868-8-28
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
