Providing Antenatal Care to Women - Essay Example

Qualitative Critique

Antenatal care is a form of preventive health care for pregnant women, which allows the physicians to administer treatments and prevention therapies for possible health issues during pregnancy and promoting healthy lifestyles to the benefit of the woman and the child. Physicians are expected to provide pregnant women with medical information concerning changes that occur in pregnancy and nutrition therapies. Furthermore, care providers are also likely to recommend healthy practices and management criteria during regular check-ups. Antenatal care is an area of interest following that the reports from the World Health Organization in 2015 indicated that around 830 mothers died daily due to challenges during pregnancy and while giving birth (Knight-Agarwal et al., 2014). Therefore, it is essential to assess and criticize current literature in the subject matter to establish the present evidence and gaps in the study.

Purpose

This qualitative critique is to criticize a peer-reviewed journal article using guidelines from a benchmark source to assess where the author meets the criteria or misses the mark.

• Introduction
  • Research Problem and the Population of Interest

Knight-Agarwal et al. (2014) identify their research problem as the continued increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity among women during their childbearing age. The research problem is easily locatable in the text following that it framed in both the abstract of the study and the introductory segment (Polit and Beck, 2017). The study integrates research evidence from various sources on the subject to create a persuasive argument for the new research. These sources generate an insight into the prevalence of the problem using quantitative data. The authors also explain why addressing the issue is essential, thereby creating a basis for their argument. The population of interest in the study is are directors of obstetrics and midwifery and gynecology working in a large tertiary healthcare organization (Polit and Beck, 2017).

• • Research Questions

What are the perspectives and attitudes of physicians who provide antenatal care to women with obesity?

• Methods
  • Research Tradition

The research tradition identified for the study is the use of focus groups in Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) in the last decade from the current study (Polit and Beck, 2017). The authors denote that the use of focus groups was not the traditional data collection technique for researchers who utilize the IPA model of research. They contend that the use of group discussions can help in the collection of information that can help researchers gather profound levels of experiential reflection compared to interviews at individual levels following that at creating a podium for hearing several perspectives. Even though the research tradition is not adequately staged, the researcher techniques and methods of analysis are congruent with the research tradition. The study provides evidence of reflexivity, where the authors argue that there exist epistemological tensions where IPA used with focus groups offers a privilege to the group than individuals (Polit and Beck, 2017).

• • Ethical Aspects of the Study

The research participants were required to provide written consent that was assigned specific numbers so that the researchers could ensure higher anonymity (Polit and Beck, 2017). In maintaining confidentiality, the study was approved by the "University of Canberra and ACT Health human research ethics committee's (No: ETH.6.11.124)" (Knight-Agarwal et al., 2014). In protecting the vulnerable groups in the study, the researchers ensured that the approval was contracted to include the broader study which examined the outcomes of birth in pregnant women with obesity.

• • Data Collection

Knight-Agarwal et al. (2014) used significant methods of capturing the study phenomenon following that they encompassed prenatal physicians, including all the clinical workers in the midwifery, gynecology, and obstetrics departments as the focus groups. The researchers made the right decisions for using the focus group interviews as the self-report method, following that the approach would help them collect a broader range of experiential reflections or information, which was part of the study's aim. The authors described managing the data collected using detailed notes and audio recordings (Polit and Beck, 2017).

• • Data Analysis Approach

The data analysis approach used in the study was the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) protocol over the focus group to generate super-ordinate subjects of the research question (Polit and Beck, 2017). The transcripts were numbered for ease of location of the required information and exploratory coding of the pragmatic claims and areas of concern of the contributors.

• Results
  • Study Outcomes

The findings were adequately summarized following that they were categorized in thematic domains that systematically answered the study question. The summary shows high levels of professionalism following that they are outlined with the focus of all responses, both verbal and non-verbal, thereby capturing the emotional feedbacks of the participants. Knight-Agarwal et al. (2014) established six domains of themes which profoundly depicts the precise meaning of the data following that they are all compounded on the views and attitudes of the participants over the antenatal care for obese pregnant women. All six themes were merged to develop a model representing the current health care challenges faced by obese pregnant women. Therefore, they served the intended purpose of the study (Polit and Beck, 2017).

• Discussion
  • Findings

The analysis produced an insightful, provocative, and meaningful picture of the study phenomenon following that the themes that emerged illustrate how healthcare providers view antenatal care for obese mothers (Polit and Beck, 2017). For instance, one of the ideas denotes that weight is a sensitive subject that requires a lot of discussions, thereby creating an insight on the weight issues as significant risk factors to prenatal challenges and how the health care professionals view the matter.

• • Clinical practice

Knight-Agarwal et al. (2014) presented the study's implications for clinical research following that they conclude that health care providers are challenged to discuss obesity issues with obese pregnant women during prenatal visits and thereby inhibiting the provision of quality of care. Furthermore, the study's implications are grounded in the study's evidence since they denote that healthcare professionals view specialist dietary mediations and evidence-based procedures to be used upon childbearing women as a priority of public concern (Polit and Beck, 2017). However, these implications are not grounded on evidence from earlier research since there primary basis is from the current study evidence.

In summary, the qualitative study's overall quality is proficient, following that it meets most of the critique criteria (Polit and Beck, 2017). It uses evidence-based priorities as the basis of the study to establish a robust argument and conduct research using substantial methodologies. The methods of data collection are supreme, thereby helping the researchers to reach higher tiers of precision. However, the research tradition is not competently established, although the researchers indicate that prior studies did not use the focus group interviews, thereby lacking adequate evidence from the earlier researches. Knight-Agarwal et al. (2014) use an excellent analysis technique, thus influencing the establishment of reliable, analyzed data to guide the discussions. Furthermore, the thematic domains from the findings are derived in a professional manner answering the research question (Polit and Beck, 2017). Finally, the study observes ethical considerations of anonymity and confidentiality of the information gathered from the participants.