IHP525 Final Project Part I A- Explain why the authors of each article selected the methods they did. How appropriate were the methods to the overall purpose of the paper? Justify your response.

IHP525 Final Project Part I

1. Explain why the authors of each article selected the methods they did. How appropriate were the methods to the overall purpose of the paper? Justify your response.

In the first article the researchers’ wants to study the gender differences in the self- reported symptoms of depression among patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). For finding these significant differences the researchers used the cross sectional observational study and a sample of the 789 adults is selected for this study. The research study is depends on the self reported symptoms of the depression among the patients and that’s why researchers cannot do any experiment. The results of this study only depends on the patients responses and therefore this is an observational study. This method is appropriate for overall purpose of the paper because by using this cross sectional observational study we can find out the significant differences between the male and females with the symptoms of the depression based on the responses from the selected patients. The subjects or patients with age more than 18 are selected so that there would be no wrong response/answer and most of the responses would be reliable for the observational study.

For the second article the researchers want to study the gender specific characteristics of individuals with the depressive symptoms and coronary heart disease (CHD). The purpose of this study is to identify the socio-demographic, clinical, and psycho-behavioral characteristics that distinguish the men from women with both conditions. For this research study the cross sectional correlational design was used and for this cross sectional design a multiple randomized clinical trials were performed for reduction of the pre-hospital delay in the CHD patients. For this research study about 3522 patients were selected.

Both cases are summarized as below:

• Analyze a difference and similarity in the methods chosen with respect to the health question being addressed in the selected articles. Explain your answer using evidence from the articles selected and information you have learned in the course.

For first research article, the method of cross sectional observational study is used for finding the significant gender differences in the self reported symptoms of depression among patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The numerical summary for the first article is summarized as below:

However, the second research article use the cross sectional correlational design for the study of gender specific characteristics of individuals with the depressive symptoms and coronary heart disease (CHD). In the first article, the clinical trials were not used while in the second research study the clinical trials were used. The results of the first research study are based on the observational study or the responses from the subjects or patients while in the second research study the results are based on the clinical trials.

• Assess strength and limitation of different approach used I the articles you selected. Explain your answer using evidence from the articles you selected and information you have learned in the course.

The strength and limitation of first and second research study are summarized as below:
The study is based on the large sample so results could be more reliable for the future use. But the selected samples are convenient sample which are largely made up of Caucasians with a high number of males. Due to this fact the results may be biased towards the male and the results would be more appropriate for males than females. Also, all the participants are selected from only two large tertiary medical centers with high levels of perspicacity but this sample does not represent the entire population and thus, we could not apply these results for entire country or location. The results for this research study are only limited to these selected medical centers. Despite these limitations, the results for this study would raise the possibility of females may have heterogeneous symptomology.

For the second research study, the sample is primarily Caucasian, so the findings cannot be generalize for the other ethnically population. Also, the research study does not measure some of the variables for which there is a possibility of getting influence for depressive symptoms. The depressive symptoms are measured with a well validated instrument. Therefore, we cannot use the diagnostic criteria to define depression. For this research study it is not appropriate to infer regarding the sample selected for this test. However, the second research study is based on the clinical trials so the bias due to different factors would be decreased, and it is useful for using the results of the research study for further use.