HLT 362 Select a research article, other than the articles from your assignments, from the GCU library.

Select a research article, other than the articles from your assignments, from the GCU library. Provide an overview of the study and describe the strategy that was used to select the sample from the population. Evaluate the effectiveness of the sampling method selected. Provide support for your answer. Include the article title and permalink in your post.

Replies to Shekar Mendon

The research article chosen for the DQ1 was about alcohol and illicit drug use by adolescents, especially high school students. According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services[HHS] (2022), adolescents who drink alcohol and illicit drugs are more likely to experience negative consequences, such as injury, death, difficulty in school, addiction, and legal problems. Based on the chosen article by Kvillemo et al. (2021), the following three questions I will ask and answers below:

What was the intention of doing the research?

The main intention was to prevent substance use and related harm in adolescents. The research was done to find the root cause and identify the reason and motives for using or abstaining from substances among high school students.

What measures were taken to maintain participants’ privacy?

They recruited twenty high school students from an affluent Swedish municipality through purposive sampling to participate in semi-structured interviews. There were eleven girls and nine boys between 15 and 19 years of age. Sweden has strict regulations on alcohol and illicit drugs compared to many other countries. Therefore, the research team contacted the principal before contacting student participants. Information and invitation to participate in the study were published on the school’s online platforms, which were visible to parents and students. Students communicated their initial interest; upon consent from the students, the principal forwarded the mobile phone numbers of those students interested to the research team. The final 20 students were selected for the study; they obtained informed consent about confidentiality and their right to withdraw their participation.

What are the strengths of the research?

This study had several strengths:

  • They were able to recruit both male and female students between 15 and 19 years of age.
  • Participants include those who are using substances as well as abstainers to increase the possibility of getting a broad view of motives to use or abstain from using substances among adolescents.
  • The research team has extensive experience in qualitative analysis as well as working with adolescents and young adults with mental health problems, alcohol, and drug consumption or abuse.

References:

HHS (2022). Substance use in adolescence. Retrieved from https://opa.hhs.gov/adolescent-health/substance-use-adolescence#:~:text=Adolescents%20who%20drink%20alcohol%20are,decreased%20over%20the%20last%20decade.

Kvillemo, P., Hiltunen, L., Demetry, Y., Carlander, A.-K., Hansson, T., Gripenberg, J., Elgán, T. H., Einhorn, K., & Skoglund, C. (2021). How to prevent alcohol and illicit drug use among students in affluent areas: a qualitative study on motivation and attitudes towards prevention. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention & Policy, 16(1), 1–13. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1186/s13011-021-00420-8

Another critical issue when evaluating ICP monitoring modalities is the possible role of pressure gradients on the ICP scores displayed to the healthcare personnel. In this regard, some questions arise: what is the value of measuring supra-tentorial ICP in subjects with infra-tentorial mass lesions, and how representative is an ICP measured in the right hemisphere in an individual with a lesion in the left?

A growing lesion will create pressure gradients needed to displace tissue and fluids, which in turn will affect the measured ICP. In this situation, the derived ICP scores will depend on the location of the ICP measurements. This concern is relevant both in TBI and in evolving hydrocephalus . Consequently, rapid treatment should be considered in patients with growing localized lesions and accompanied with symptoms, despite any discrepancy between clinical signs and ICP.

Moreover, pressure gradients may exist between the craniospinal compartments and should be kept in mind when making critical clinical decisions. Comparing pressure scores between the intracranial and lumbar cases revealed differences in static ICP and ICP wave amplitudes.

  1. Sahuquillo J, Poca MA, Arribas M, Garnacho A, Rubio E. Interhemispheric supratentorial intracranial pressure gradients in head-injured patients: are they clinically meaningful? J Neurosurg. 1999;90:16–26. doi: 10.3171/jns.1999.90.1.0016. [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]