Mental Health - Self Harm - Research Paper Example

Mental Health- Self harm Qualitative Research question: How are medical practices and procedures suited in controlling issues of self-poisoning, self-inflicted cuts and hitting body parts by the mentally ill in the US today? Aims and objectives: The overall goal that the researcher wants to achieve by the analysis of the current study is tagged as the aim of the research, while the attendant tasks that must be performed to achieve the aim is referred to as objectives of the study. Aim: The researcher aims at qualitatively studying the extent to which medical practices that are in application within the US are customized to address issues of self harm with respect to mentally ill patients and how the tools applied promote or inhabit effective health care delivery to the patients. Objectives: To evaluate the foregoing satisfaction by the medical practitioners concerning tools adopted in addressing self-harm by mentally ill patients and their effectiveness. To identify the various tools and approaches that are applied in addressing self harm by mentally ill patients in the US currently. Epistemology This research study adopts an ‘interpretivism’ epistemology because the qualitative approach is more investigative (Goldkuhl, 2012, p. 138-140). This is because understanding the suitability of medical practices and tools qualitatively requires the use of distinctive opinions and thoughts than it is in using quantitative methodology. Besides, the study focuses on answering epistemic questions mainly approaching practice as knowledge as well as understanding the nature and validity of the knowledge generated through practice as is to be gotten from practitioners. Qualitative literature will also be very useful in this epistemological approach in studying the subject outlined (Carter and Little, 2007, 1317). Nevertheless, this epistemology has prolonged data collection, which means that more time would be consumed and the processes would be complex. Methodology This study is focused in studying the topic within the US particularly within the medical school health care facilities. This is partly because the facilities are research facilities in nature and thus they are expected to facilitate the effectiveness of the research through factual data as well as willingness to collaborate with the researcher for the success of the study. Focusing on studying the phenomena in US is also informed by the ever-rising cases of mental health and such cases of health harm as consumption of poisonous substances and inflicting the body with pain from scratches and hitting on rough surfaces (Gardner, 2008, p. 31-32.). The population targeted in this study is that of persons within medical school heath hospitals, those that have had at least three years of experience with the mentally ill within the particular hospitals. Three hospitals are to be selected for the collection of data and the sampling tactic to be employed in choosing is based on geographical location. Urban-based medical school facility will have priority over rural based facility for ease of convenience in accessibility. Nevertheless, this study will sample at least one rural facility to ensure representativeness and to avoid biasness in the data collected. Sampling of the respondent on the other hand will be based on experience, gender as well as age in order to have equal and effective representation of respondents to ensure no biasness would result. A minimum of three years of experience in the field, inclusivity of equal females to males in responding to the questionnaires as well as ensuring both young and elderly medical practitioners are involved will form the basis of study sampling techniques. First, inclusion for the case of health facilities will be dependent on the years of operations where a minimum of ten years will be prerequisite. Willingness to participate will also be used as a basis of inclusion for the study, for both medical practitioners and the facilities to be included. The state of health will also be used as a criterion for inclusion and or exclusion where it is mandatory that all participants be of sound mind and in good state of health to avoid errors and biasness in information collected. Data collection will adopt qualitative questionnaires as the main tools and instruments (Weinreb and Sana, 2009, p. 429-433; Michaelidou and Dibb, 2006,p. 289-293). A questionnaire is a piece of paper that contains written questions, of which the respondents will be expected to answer through writing. The questionnaire is going to offer a number of advantages including the fact that it is going to make the collection of qualitative data using close-ended questions easier. What is more, while using the questionnaire, the respondents will have some time to review critically the questions before answering them. This means that unlike an interview where answers are collected outright, the researcher shall give out the questionnaires and come back after a period for the responses. This will ensure that there is much credibility with the answers that will be gathered from the respondents. The procedure in the primary data collection will involved identifying the respondents and administering of the questionnaires. A briefing will be mandatory for orienting the respondents and clarifying on the unclear information on the questionnaire before leaving them to answer the questions on their own within every health facility. Questionnaires are to be collected later after issuing out in order to have the respondents have enough time to answer. Data analysis and conclusions will be based on qualitative deductions that will be established from both the primary and secondary data collected in the study. Ethics As part of academic and professional practice, a number of ethical considerations will be made in conducting the research. As far as secondary data collection, which will be part of the qualitative study is concerned the researcher must ensure that all sources used for the study were well referenced to avoid any form of plagiarism, which is a serious academic offence. As far as primary data collection is concerned, much of the ethical attention will be given to the involvement of the participants who will be selected for the study. In the first place, an official permission will be sought from the hospitals using an official permission letter to the administration of the hospitals. Next, a consent form will be prepared for all the participants to read and clearly understand their role as participants. The consent form will also explain to the participants the aims and objectives of the study as well as measures taken by the research to ensure that the confidentiality of the participants and their responses will be kept. For example the respondents will not be expected to write their names on the questionnaires and there will not be any third party agent to handle the questionnaire other than the researcher. Quantitative Research question: How are medical practices and procedures suited in controlling issues of self-poisoning, self-inflicted cuts and hitting body parts by the mentally ill in the US today? Aims and objectives: The overall goal that the researcher wants to achieve by the analysis of the current study is tagged as the aim of the research, while the attendant tasks that must be performed and analyzed to achieve the aim is referred to as objectives of the study. Aim: The researcher aims at empirically studying the extent to which medical practices that are in application within the US are customized to address issues of self-harm with respect to mentally ill patients and how the tools applied promote or inhabit effective health care delivery to the patients. Objectives: To evaluate the degree of satisfaction by the medical practitioners concerning tools that have been in use in the last three years in addressing self-harm by mentally ill patients and their effectiveness in minimizing the effects. To identify and quantify the various tools and approaches that been in application for addressing self-harm by mentally ill patients in the US currently. Epistemology This study will adopt the positivism epistemology as advised by the nature of the methodology adopted, which is quantitative. Positivism is advantageous in economies of collecting large volumes of data, having clear theoretical focus as well as the ease of comparing data collected (Raddon, nd, p. 7). Besides, the epistemology enables the researcher to have full control of the entire research process thus validating the quality of the results that are gotten. Nevertheless, there is a shortcoming with the epistemology in that it is inflexible and sometimes is weak in interpretation of social issues. Methodology This study is focused in studying the topic within the US particularly within the medical school health care facilities. This is because the facilities are research facilities in nature and thus they are expected to facilitate the effectiveness of the research through factual data as well as willingness to collaborate with the researcher for the success of the study. Focusing on studying the phenomena in US is also informed by the ever-rising cases of mental health and such cases of self-harm as consumption of poisonous substances and inflicting the body with pain from scratches and hitting on rough surfaces. In spite of the increased occurrence of such cases in the country, there lacks empirical evidence on the levels in which the menace has been and the various tools that have been applied in correcting it (Wylie et al, 1996, p. 246). This therefore informs the need for an empirical study like this one. The population targeted in this study is that of persons within medical school heath hospitals, those that have had at least three years of experience with the mentally ill within the particular hospitals. Three hospitals will be selected for the collection of data and the sampling tactic to be employed in choosing is based on geographical location. Urban-based medical school facility will have priority over rural based facility for ease of convenience in accessibility. Nevertheless, this study will sample at least one rural facility to ensure representativeness and to avoid biasness in the data collected. Sampling of the respondent on the other hand will be based on experience, gender as well as age in order to have equal and effective representation of respondents to ensure no biasness would result. A minimum of three years of experience in the field, inclusivity of equal females to males in responding to the questionnaires as well as ensuring both young and elderly medical practitioners are involved will form the basis of study sampling techniques. First, inclusion for the case of health facilities will be dependent on the years of operations where a minimum of ten years will be prerequisite. Willingness to participate will also be used as a basis of inclusion for the study, for both medical practitioners and the facilities to be included. The state of health will also be used as a criterion for inclusion and or exclusion where it is mandatory that all participants be of sound mind and in good state of health to avoid errors and biasness in information collected. Analytical methods especially the empirical analyses are applicable within the context of testable variable within studies. Within the empirical context of research study, the researcher identifies the overall population, decides on the observable variables and then quantification of the empirical research is done. This involves the methods of measuring the variables, estimating the respective parameters and then testing the hypothesis. In this study, the primary data collection process is scheduled to last for fifteen working days with five days spent in each of the hospitals. In each of the hospitals, four days will be spent on the patients and the one other day on the staff of the hospitals. In each hospital, one day will be used to undertake the sieving of the sample while another day will be used for the sampling. Upon settling on the sample sizes to use, a mini conference will be organised to make known to the respondents the aims and objectives of the study besides informing them on what their roles would be as participants. As part of the conference, the questionnaire and its content will be thoroughly explained to the respondents. Respondents will be given the chance to ask all questions that would be of interest and which will be useful to them in the course of answering the questions. After this, respondents will be given three days starting from the day of receiving the questionnaire to answer the questions on the questionnaire. On each of the days within the three days, the researcher will visit the hospitals to interact with the respondents for attending to any matter arising in the process of filling in the questionnaire. This will accord the respondents a chance to ask any questions or seek any clarification needed in the course of answering the questionnaire. Scientific tools like of data analysis like SPSS will be employed for analysis. Ethics Ethics in general defines the acceptable code of behaviour that is expected with a particular setup or within a society. Research studies takes into consideration the necessity of ethical behaviour in such practices as data collection involving active participation of other parties other than the researchers. Ethics dictates that full consent of participating individuals is sought prior to administering of the questionnaires or any other tool being used for data collection. Coercion or such other vices as bribery to have individuals cooperate are unethical and the adverse effect is that biasness is encouraged. It is also fundamental to have the consent of the commissioning authority as well as the consent of authorities within the institutions targeted in order to ascertain accountability as well as cooperation. Moreover, ethics dictate that language employed for the tool of data collection be sober and respectful to avoid failure to cooperate from the respondents because of such reasons as use of vulgar language. It is therefore necessary to understand the target population in order to meet their needs adequately. Comparison In comparing the two studies, one would note that qualitative study is less time consuming as compared to the quantitative study. The epistemology adopted in qualitative study (interpretivism) points to the main advantage of answering the questions of why and how in the study, presents a good understanding of the issue as seen in sociological perspective as well as allow ease of contextualizing factors in the complexity of the study (Wright and Losekoot, 2012, p. 416). On the other hand, positivism epistemology as adopted within the quantitative study presents advantages in ease of collecting data through questionnaires, having clear focus in study as well as ease in comparing empirical results (Weber, 2004, p. 10-11). Moreover, in the quantitative study, an individual is in a position to maintain control over the study as against the qualitative study (Kim, 2003, p. 10). However, the two methodologies have strategic weaknesses, which often points to the advantage of using the other one. For instance, data collection in qualitative is often time consuming, complex as well as often regarded as non-credible especially by non-researchers (Zwijze-Koning, and Menno, 2005, p 429-431). On the other hand, the process of quantitative study is less flexible, poor in interpreting social issues as well as failure to associate with value that people associate with social phenomena. Nevertheless, depending on the theme of study, applying qualitative methods is effective while deductions are involved while employing quantitative analysis where empirical figures are used is effective. Bibliography Carter S. M. and Little M., 2007. “Justifying Knowledge, Justifying Method, Taking Action: Epistemologies, Methodologies, and Methods in Qualitative Research” Qualitative health research 17(10): 1316-1328 Gardner, F. 2008, Analysis of self-harm, Reed Business Information UK, Sutton. Goldkuhl, G. 2012, "Pragmatism vs interpretivism in qualitative information systems research", European Journal of Information Systems, 21(2): 135-146. Kim, S. 2003, "research paradigms in organizational learning and performance: competing modes of inquiry", Information Technology, Learning, and Performance Journal, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 9-18. MacDonald, P. 2009, "Supporting people who self-harm", Practice Nurse, 37(9): 31-32. Michaelidou, N. & Dibb, S. 2006, "Using email questionnaires for research: Good practice in tackling non-response", Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 14(4): 289-296. Raddon A., nd. “Early Stage Research Training: Epistemology & Ontology in Social Science Research” Available at: [Accessed 25 February, 2014]. Weber, R. 2004, "The Rhetoric of Positivism Versus Interpretivism: A Personal View", MIS Quarterly, 28(1): 10-III,IV,V,VI,VII,VIII,IX,X,XI,XII. Weinreb, A.A. & Sana, M. 2009, "The Effects of Questionnaire Translation on Demographic Data and Analysis", Population Research and Policy Review, 28(4): 429-454. Wright, N. & Losekoot, E. 2012, "Interpretative Research Paradigms: Points of Difference", Academic Conferences International Limited, Kidmore End, (6): 416. Wylie, K, et al, 1996, "Deliberate self-harm and substance dependence: The management of patients seen in the general hospital", Journal of mental health administration, 23(2): 246. Zwijze-Koning, K. & Menno D T de, J. 2005, "Auditing Information Structures in Organizations: A Review of Data Collection Techniques for Network Analysis", Organizational Research Methods, 8(4): 429-453. Read More