Qualitative General Depression - Essay Example

Running head: Qualitative General Depression Course name: Course instructor: Date: Qualitative General Depression Introduction Adolescent depression is a serious disorder which is marked by prevalence rate of approximately 5% along with significant rates of relapse and mortality. It is known to affect the youth over-all wellbeing, their interpersonal relationships, academic performance and the family and support systems. A qualitative study was conducted that include a semi structured guided interviews with fifteen adolescents (9 male 6 females). The purpose of our study was to investigate adolescent’s experiences with depression: how depression affected their relationship, their academic performance, their behavior with family members as well as treatment they have received. A comparison was then made on how qualitative study investigates the experience of depression compared to quantitative study in the following aspects. Data collection This survey involved Semi structured interviews of fifteen young adults who had been diagnosed with and treated for the major depression disorder between the ages of 15-19. When collecting data, two approaches were used: qualitative and quantitative research. Quantitative approach on the experience of depression applied more easily than qualitative research. It involved sampling the fifteen teenagers and the interview was audio taped for further reference. When collecting this data, the findings were summarized as follows: all the fifteen adolescents experienced significant factors in their family concurrent with the time of their first episode e.g. hatred and been neglected, all the fifteen adolescents were not involved in planning or even involved in treatment during their hospitalization, depression caused these teenagers’ broken relationships and traditional school setting did not help the teenagers in dealing with depression hence the great impact. Data collected in quantitative research was hard and numerical. The strengths of producing data which is hard are that it demonstrates an ordered system. Quantitative data collected investigate things which we can observe and measure in some way. Such observations and measurements can be made objectively and can be repeated by other researchers. It can also be used in studying human behavior and the social world which is inhabited by human beings. Qualitative research helps us to adequately answer the question why? E.g. why things are the way they are in our social world. For example in our study, we were able to answer the question why depression has caused many broken relationships between these teenagers. The answer was that, the public as well as the private schools did not help these participants to recognize or even manage their depression. They were not even involved in planning nor were they kept involved of their treatment during their hospitalization hence this had a great impact on their relationships. Qualitative data collection describes tests and examines cause and effect relationship e.g. it shows a relationship between depression and family systems. Data collected shows us that there has been a dying relationship between the family members and the depressed adolescent as a result of behaviors’ which are associated with depression e.g. smoking. Quantitative methods of data collection produce legitimate scientific answers and this can be seen as hard data. On the other hand, qualitative data collection produce soft data, which is seen as inadequate in providing answers and in trying to generate any, change (Strauss, & Corbin, 2000) Sample recruitment When sampling, the sampling procedures in each case are complex hence must meet the criteria of the data collection strategy. A sample in both qualitative and quantitative approaches is required which is a representative of the large group. We sampled the fifteen teenagers and this was a representative of the large population of the depressed adolescents in most of our societies today. Sampling in this case is recommended since it becomes difficult to collect data from the whole population of depressed teenagers. With quantitative research, demands a random selection of the sample from the study population plus the random assignment of the sample to the various study groups. Statistical sampling then relies on the sample to generalize the larger group. Here, we picked randomly fifteen adolescents in a certain hospital that had been diagnosed with depression. No certain procedure was followed when sampling these adolescents hence this tries to minimize biasness when sampling. The advantage of this approach is that the findings do have an increased likelihood of being generalized. The disadvantage of this approach is that, its time consuming. After sampling, interviews were then carried out and we generalized our research from the results we got from them (Thomas, 2006). Data reliability and analysis The interviews were analyzed without the use of qualitative data analysis. We decided to analyze the data through inscribing and revising notes which had been written on the physical transcripts. This was because the data collected was from a small sample hence we did not require software programs used in qualitative data analysis. In case of reliability, quantitative research is more reliable than the qualitative research. It aims at controlling or eliminating the extraneous variables within the internal structure of study and the data collected can be assessed by standardized testing. Adolescent’s depression affects the youths overall well being, their interpersonal relationships, academic performance as well as family and support systems (Gall, 2000). More often here, it is related to suicide which is the third leading cause of death for these teenagers. We concluded that 1500 youth between the ages 15 and 19 committed suicides. They often experience stress and confusion and this is as a result of various situations which do occur in their families for example, when the father and the mother keep on quarreling at home, this might affect the teenagers’. Such feeling might overwhelm these teenagers hence suicidal cases become the best solution for them. However, one can question the reliability of quantitative research especially when this data has been stripped from natural context or there are random cases which are assumed not to have happened. The reliability of qualitative research on the other hand is weakened by the fact that the process is under standardized and relies mostly on the abilities and insights of the observer hence this tries to make the assessment reliability difficult (Creswell, 2007). Validity of data and generalization For data validity, although the qualitative methodologies may have greater problems with reliability of data than the quantitative methodologies, the position is reversed when the main issues here is data validity and generalization. Generalizations were made about the increasing suicidal cases in our country as a result of depression. We also generalized that only 34% of our study participants indicated that their schools had clear processes for identifying students with the mental issues. Of those students which are in need of counseling, the majority of professionals did express a belief that only half or few receive the needed health services. The weaknesses in quantitative research is that the more tightly controlled the study is, it becomes more difficult to confirm that the research situation is like real life. The strengths of the qualitative approach are proposed in the claim that there are less threats of external validity. This is because the subjects are studies in their natural setting hence encounter less controlling factors unlike in the quantitative research conditions (Stake, 2000). According to ethical issues, ethical considerations in both approaches are the same: safety and protection of human rights. This is only achieved by the use of processes of informed consent. The information we got from our study was safe and protected as it is required ethically in every study. The utilization of informed consent sometimes becomes a problem in quantitative research but practically impossible in qualitative methodologies since the direction that the research takes is unknown (Merriam, 2000). Conclusion To conclude, although qualitative and quantitative approaches are different, no one approach is superior to the other. From our research we concluded that adolescents depression is a chronic recurrent and a serious illness which is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. At any given time, about 5% of adolescents’ are depressed something affecting our societies so much. Without a professional help, then major depressive episodes lasts approximately 9 months. Furthermore, this risk is seen as recurring hence need to wake up and help the depressed teenagers with the proper medication like proper counseling. References Creswell, J. (2007). Qualitative interviewing: The art of earing data. 6th ed. White Plains, NY: Longman Gall, M. (2000). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage Merriam, S. (2000). A handbook of qualitative research. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Strauss, A, & Corbin, J (2000). Basics of qualitative and quantitative research: Grounded theories procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Stake, R. (2000). Transforming qualitative data: Description, analysis and interpretation. Chicago. University of Chicago press. Thomas, J. (2006). Doing critical ethnography. 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