Observational Research Design Paper

Observational Research Design
Observational Research Design

Observational Research Design

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Observational research often provides the foundation for further exploration of a topic. It is frequently used when conducting a preliminary research study to better describe a problem. Many researchers conduct observational studies that then lead to more in depth and larger experimental projects. It is an important form of qualitative research and has a significant place in public health research. For this Discussion, use the the Internet and locate an article using the keyword search terms of “observational research,” or “qualitative research” that has used observational design as a methodology to conduct public health research. Carefully read the article examining the strengths of the study.

Post a summary of the article, outlining the design and implementation of the study.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the study?

Why do you think the researchers chose to use an observational methodology for the research study? Support your response.
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Observational Research Design

The research is an observational study of the Bihar, Indian’s public care system covering over 100 million inhabitants and focused on the Tuberculosis discontinuation and symptom persistence. The research, which was done by Kimberly Babiarz, Sze-chuan Suen, and Jeremy Goldhaber in 2011, sampled patients who had initiated treatment more than six months prior to the interview. The researchers administered questionnaires to patients about their TB treatment duration, symptoms, prior treatment, and the sociodemographic characteristics. In addition, multivariate logistic regression model was adopted to estimate the risk of treatment discontinuation for the recorded characteristics as well as to estimate probabilities of symptom persistent to 25 weeks of the post-treatment initiation. The model included robust standard errors, district fixed effects, and adjustments for the survey sampling design while symptom persistent and treatment default timing relied entirely on self-report (Babiarz et al., 2014).

The study established that 24 percent of the patients discontinued treatment prior to 25 weeks and a higher likelihood of discontinuation happened in patients who failed to complete previous treatment. Again, symptoms persisted in about 42 percent of the patients who had discontinued treatment within six weeks and 28 percent for completing the 25-week treatment (Babiarz et al., 2014).

Concerning the study strengths, the study was able to realize a 92 percent response rate of the respondents. The number of sampled patients (1007) is also quite representative of the target population. The focus on the Bihar state with a population of 100 million, which is only 10 percent of India’s population, is one of the limitations in the study. The second limitation is the focus of the study on self-report with no external validations. The validation of the findings is also limited since the research did not employ any clinical measures.

The researchers chose to use the observational research design as a basis for their effort to study the incidence, causes, and prognosis of the problem of study. Vogt et al. (2012), note that the observational method is effective in distinguishing cause and effect, as well as in determining prevalence and comparisons between groups.

References

Babiarz, K. S., Suen, S., & Goldhaber-Fiebert, J. D. (2014). Tuberculosis Treatment Discontinuation and Symptom Persistence: An Observational Study of Bihar, India’s Public Care System Covering >100,000,000 inhabitants. BMC Public Health14(1), 1-27.

Vogt, W., Haeffele, L. M., & Gardner, D. C. (2012). When to Use What Research Design. New York: Guilford Press.

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